INVERTEBRATE ALERT
This blog provides an informal forum for terrestrial invertebrate watchers to post recent sightings of interesting observations in the southern Vancouver Island region. Please send your sightings by email to Jeremy Tatum (tatumjb352@gmail.com). Be sure to include your name, phone number, the species name (common or scientific) of the invertebrate you saw, location, date, and number of individuals. If you have a photograph you are willing to share, please send it along. Click on the title above for an index of past sightings.The index is updated most days.

February 15

2021 February 15

 

   Jeremy Tatum writes:  Here is a Ctenolepisma longicaudata from my Saanich apartment.   This is a three-pronged bristletail – but this individual seems to have lost one of its prongs.

 


Ctenolepisma longicaudata (Zygentoma – Lepismatidae)  Jeremy Tatum

 

     Jeremy Tatum writes:  The moth shown below emerged today from a pupa formed from a caterpillar last year.  Fortunately it just missed the cold weather – today is much warmer and the snow is melting. Identifying the moth was a bit tricky, but Libby Avis and I both came up with Orthosia praeses.  The reddish brown head gave it away.


Orthosia praeses (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Jeremy Tatum

February 12

2021 February 12

 

    Some slugs and spiders from near the 9 km marker along the Galloping Goose Trail, View Royal, by Ian Cooper, February 5.   Thanks to Dr Robb Bennett for confirming Ian’s spider identifications.

 


Limax maximus (Pul.: Limacidae)   Ian Cooper

 


Ariolimax columbianus (Pul.: Arionidae)  Ian Cooper

 


Eratigena duellica (Ara.: Agelenidae)  Ian Cooper

 

Probably Scotophaeus blackwalli (Ara.: Gnaphosidae)  Ian Cooper


Pimoa altioculata (Ara: Pimoidae)  Ian Cooper

 

Just possibly Helophora sp. (Ara.: Linyphiidae – Linyphiinae)  Ian Cooper

February 11

2021 February 11

 

   Undeterred by the cold weather, Ian Cooper was still hard at it with his camera last night near the 9 km marker on the Galloping Goose trail, when he discovered a pseudoscorpion also braving the cold.

 

Pseudoscorpion  (Arachnida – Pseudoscorpiones)  Ian Cooper

 

   Jochen Möhr found this caterpillar emerging out of some corn salad that he had harvested for dinner.

 

Large Yellow Underwing  Noctua pronuba (Lep.: Noctuidae)   Jochen Möhr

February 9

 

   Rosemary Jorna writes from the Kemp Lake area:  Does this one qualify for the first butterfly of 2021? It was on our kitchen counter today and has been trying to leave ever since. 

 

   Yes, writes Jeremy Tatum, it most certainly does.  This is not one of the butterflies that overwinters in the adult state – it normally does so as a pupa.  The pupa has presumably been indoors, and the butterfly ecloded (with a d) prematurely because of the warmth.  Yet it is often asserted that daylight length is at least as important as temperature in determining date of eclosion (with an s).

 

 

Cabbage White  Pieris rapae (Lep.: Pieridae) Rosemary Jorna

 

Cabbage White  Pieris rapae (Lep.: Pieridae) Rosemary Jorna

 

 

 

February 8

2021 February 8

 

   Jeremy Tatum writes:  The caterpillar season is back!   This one is a very young (3 mm) Paraseptis adnixa (formerly known as Aseptis adnixa).  This is one of the earliest caterpillars to be found in the year.  It feeds on the leaves of Indian Plum Oemleria cerasiformis, which is the earliest of our local shrubs to come into leaf.  At this time of year it is safe from the dangers of parasitoidal tachinid flies.

 


Paraseptis adnixa (Lep.: Noctuidae)   Jeremy Tatum