2020 August 7

   Jochen Möhr reports from Metchosin:

This morning:

2 Neoalcis californiaria

1 Perizoma curvilinea 

Yesterday afternoon:

2 Ochlodes sylvanoides

1 Vanessa cardui

Painted Lady Vanessa cardui (Lep.:  Nymphalidae)  Jochen Möhr

And this afternoon, a fine caterpillar:

Orgyia pseudotsugata (Lep.: Erebidae – Lymantriinae)  Jochen Möhr

   And here’s a nice miscellany from Gordon Hart in the Highlands.  The centre-stage insect is an antlion.  Don’t know the exact species.  Don’t think we can identify the noctuid moth, which is just a little out of the depth of focus.  The small insect nearest the right hand edge of the photograph is, I think, a culicid, better known to most of us as a mosquito.  Never thought we’d find out what the other small flies are, but Libby Avis identified them!   They are dark-winged fungus gnats (Dip.: Sciaridae).   We can even make out the wing venation on one of them.

Antlion (Neu.: Myrmeleontidae) and others      Gordon Hart

Crab spiders seem to be able to capture and subdue some quite large prey.  Yesterday Rosemary Jorna saw two of them, each with a large bumble bee, in her garden in the Kemp Lake area.

Misumena vatia (Ara.: Thomisidae) with Bombus vosnesenskii (Hym.: Apidae)   Rosemary Jorna

Random thoughts (Jeremy Tatum):

How do you spell fishfly, bumble bee, etc.?

I think the rule that I’ll follow on Invert Alert is this.  If it is a fly, then “fly” is a separate word.  If it is not a fly, “fly” is attached.

Thus    House Fly                   Butterfly

Drone Fly                   Dragonfly

Horse Fly                    Stonefly

Hover Fly                    Fishfly

Dung Fly                     Caddisfly

etc., usw.    By this rule, I suppose it should be Bumble Bee

Talking of stoneflies, we’ve had only three photographs of them in the ten years of Invert Alert.  There are usually lots at Goldstream  Park.   Photographers please note.

In the days of Moses Harris (1730-88), the word “fly” was used for any insect, in much the same way as today some people misuse the word “bug” to mean any insect.  Thus Moses Harris wrote that “The Camberwell Beauty is one of the scarcest Flies in England.”

2020 August 6

   The moth below was brought into the Swan Lake Nature House and photographed by Coral Forbes.  It was misidentified by Jeremy Tatum (i.e. by me!) and identified properly by Claudia Copley (who wrote the paper on the species in British Columbia) as Noctua pronuba  – a rather dark specimen:

Noctua pronuba  (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Coral Forbes

   A Perizoma curvilinea from Jochen Möhr in Metchosin:

Perizoma curvilinea (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Möhr

2020 August 5

Gordon Hart writes:  On Monday, August 3, we went to Royal Roads University since the wind had died down.  The Italian and English gardens were at their peak, but the poor rose garden was not kept up at all. It would not have been good for our group, since there was a limit of 50 people in the gardens, and a short line-up to get in. (The rest of the grounds were still open, though). There were several butterflies: 4 Cabbage Whites, one Lorquin’s Admiral and a Woodland Skipper, and many Pine Whites. Outside the gardens there were small patches of Goldenrod, and another yellow flower, with several Pine Whites on each clump.

Gordon sends photographs of some of the insects he saw there on August 2 and 3.

Pine White Neophasia menapia (Lep.: Pieridae)  Gordon Hart

Enallagma carunculatum (Odo.: Coenagrionidae)  Gordon Hart

      The insect below (incorrectly identified in an earlier version of this posting) is a Giant Case-bearing Caddisfly of the Family Phryganeidae, and almost certainly Philostomis ocellifera.  As Merrill Peterson writes of the Family: they have “two spurs on the front tibia”.   See them?

Philostomis ocellifera (Tri.: Phryganeidae)  Gordon Hart

Perizoma curvilinea (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jeremy Tatum

Neoalcis californiaria (Lep.: Geometridae)  Gordon Hart

Cardinal Meadowhawk  Sympetrum illotum (Odo.: Libellulidae)  Gordon Hart

Jochen Möhr’s moths from Metchosin this morning:

1 Eulithis xylina 

1 Eupithecia sp. 

1 Drepanulatrix (probably secundaria)

1 Neoalcis californiaria

Drepanulatrix (probably secundaria) (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Möhr)

   There has been a lot of newspaper publicity recently about the Giant Asian Hornet.  The species in question is Vespa mandarinia.  It is more of a true hornet (Vespa) than our common White-faced Hornet.  It has been found in Nanaimo.  We should keep a look out for it here.  According to the newspaper, it can decimate honey bee hives – that is, it can reduce them by ten percent.  Yes, I know there are those of the “language evolves” school who would say that decimate does not mean only this, and they can quote distinguished writers from a century ago who used it mean something else.  This may be so, but my feeling is that it is much easier for us to communicate among and understand ourselves, and to make the best use of the English language, if we use the word “spade” to mean “spade”,  “kid” to mean “kid”, and “decimate” to mean “decimate”.    I think the current misuse of the word “decimate” is nothing more than a malapropism of the inaccurately-heard “devastate”.

2020 August 4

   Two butterflies and a moth from Jochen Möhr in Metchosin:

Essex Skipper Thymelicus lineola (Lep.: Hesperiidae)  Jochen Möhr

Woodland Skipper Ochlodes sylvanoides (Lep.: Hesperiidae)  Jochen Möhr

Oligia divesta (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Jochen Möhr

  Jody Wells photographed a Painted Lady near the reservoir at Longview Farms, Wallace Drive:

Painted Lady Vanessa cardui (Lep.:  Nymphalidae)  Jody Wells

   Some butterflies and a fly photographed by Aziza Cooper on Mount Washington last week.  Thanks to Dr Jeff Skevington for identification of the fly, and to David Harris for the identification of the skipper.

Branded Skipper Hesperia comma (Lep.: Hesperiidae)  Aziza Cooper

Anise Swallowtail Papilio zelicaon (Lep.: Papilionidae)  Aziza Cooper

Great Arctic Oeneis nevadensis (Lep.: Nymphalidae – Satyrinae)  Aziza Cooper

Male hover fly Sericomyia chalcopyga (Dip.: Syrphidae)  Aziza Cooper

   Rick and Libby Avis came across this grisly scene along the Stamp River on Sunday.  It is the cocoon formed by the larva of an ichneumon wasp (probably subfamily Campopleginae), after eating its way out of a lepidopterous caterpillar, whose skin can be seen above it.

Ichneumonid cocoon (Hym.: Ichneumonidae – Campopleginae)  Rick Avis

   Rosemary Jorna sends pictures from Sheilds Lake of a rather pale Banana Slug, some carpenter ants, and a bumble bee identified for us by Annie Pang.

Carpenter ants Camponotus sp. (Hym.: Formicidae)  Rosemary Jorna

Banana Slug Ariolimax columbianus (Pul.: Arionidae) Rosemary Jorna

Bombus vosnesenskii (Hym.: Apidae)  Rosemary Jorna

Bombus vosnesenskii (Hym.: Apidae)  Rosemary Jorna

Bombus vosnesenskii (Hym.: Apidae)  Rosemary Jorna

2020 August 3

   Jochen Möhr’s  moths from Metchosin this morning:

1 Apamea amputatrix

1 Nemoria darwiniata,

2 Neoalcis californiaria 

1 Pero (honestaria?)

plus  6 Woodland Skippers and 1 Essex Skipper

Pero (probably honestaria)  (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Möhr

Apamea amputatrix  (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Jochen Möhr

Essex Skipper Thymelicus lineola (Lep.: Hesperiidae)  Jochen Möhr