2019 July 7

   The monthy Butterfly Walk was scheduled for today, and five hardy souls turned up, although it was completely overcast, windy, cold, and just starting to rain.  Cancel the Walk?  Not a bit of it!  We decided that we would walk along the Lochside Trail from Lohbrunner’s to Blenkinsop Lake to see if we could spot any caterpillars of the Satyr Comma.  It wasn’t quite so windy or cold there as on Mount Tolmie, though the rain steadily increased until at the end of the afternoon it was fairly roaring with pain.   We did what we set out to do, and Juliet Pendray found not one, but two Satyr Comma caterpillars. The first was quite tiny, only 7 mm long.  The second was a later instar and was just preparing for ecdysis into the next instar.   Here they are:

Satyr Comma Polygonia satyrus (Lep.: Nymphalidae)

Jeremy Tatum

Satyr Comma Polygonia satyrus (Lep.: Nymphalidae) Val George

  Also seen during the Walk were two moths:

Campaea perlata (Lep.: Geometridae)  Val George

Emmelina monodactyla (Lep.: Pterophoridae)  Val George

   We also saw Rattus norvegicus, but that’s not an invertebrate, so it doesn’t count!

  We also saw, but didn’t photograph, a slug of the Arion ater group.  Fortunately Cheryl Hoyle had photographed one of these slugs, also on the Lochside Trail, on the same day.  There are supposed to be several (three or more?) species in this group, separable only by dissection, although ours is supposed to be Arion rufus.

Arion (probably rufus) (Pul.: Arionidae)  Cheryl Hoyle

   Gordon Hart reports a California Tortoiseshell flying around a Ceanothus bush in his Highlands garden on July 3.  He also saw one around the same bush there last year.  Since Ceanothus is the larval foodplant, we must suspect that it may have bred there.

More tomorrow…

2019 July 6 morning

Jochen Möhr’s moths in Metchosin yesterday morning:

1 Callizzia amorata

1 Euceratia castella

1 Eulithis xylina

1 Hemithea aestivaria

2 Homorthodes hanhami

2 Lacinipolia cuneata

6 Lacinipolia strigicollis

1 Lophocampa maculata

2 Nadata gibbosa

1 Schizura ipomoeae

1 Perizoma costiguttata

1 Sicya crocearia

Eulithis xylina (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Möhr

Hemithea aestivaria (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Möhr

Perizoma costiguttata (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Möhr

Schizura ipomoeae (Lep.: Notodontidae)  Jochen Möhr

   Yesterday, July 5, we showed two pupae found by Judith Sales.  We didn’t have to wait long.  An adult moth emerged last night from the fatter pupa (presumably a female).  Here it is:

Catocala aholibah (Lep.: Erebidae – Erebinae) Jeremy Tatum

   I released it on Mount Tolmie, where I know the species occurs.  Maybe we’ll see it during tomorrow’s Butterfly Walk (Mount Tolmie, 1:00 pm, Sunday) though, if it has settled on a lichen-covered oak trunk, it will be well-nigh invisible.

2019 July 5 afternoon

Gordon Hart writes:

Hello Butterfly Watchers,
This is a reminder for the July Butterfly Walk to take place on Sunday, July 7, at 1 p.m . We meet near the Mount Tolmie summit by the reservoir parking lot. After a look around the summit area, we will decide on a destination from there. 

For details and updates, see the VNHS calendar: https://www.vicnhs.bc.ca/?page_id=1518

See you on Sunday,

Gordon 

Gordon Hart,

Victoria Natural History Society

   Jeremy Tatum shows a picture of a Painted Lady caterpillar preparing to pupate:

Painted Lady Vanessa cardui (Lep.: Nymphalidae)  Jeremy Tatum

   Just three hours after the above photograph was taken, the caterpillar had pupated, and the chrysalis looked like this:

Painted Lady Vanessa cardui (Lep.: Nymphalidae)  Jeremy Tatum

   In another two hours or so the chrysalis will develop a shiny gold (Greek chrysos = gold) colour.

  Judith Sales has given me two moth pupae that she found while raking the detritus under a Garry Oak in her Cedar Hill Road garden.  The larger, black one is certainly Catocala aholibah.  The other one seems slightly smaller, slightly slimmer, and a slightly different colour.  However, I can’t think what else it might be, and I believe it is another C. aholibah.  I’ll have to wait until the moths eclode (new fancy word for emerge) but I suspect that the bigger, stouter, black one will turn out to be a female, and the smaller, slimmer, brown one will turn out to be a male of the same species, Catocala aholibah. See also the account of Udea turmalis below.

Catocala aholibah (Lep.: Erebidae – Erebinae)  Jeremy Tatum

   “Aholibah” is an unusual name. The second syllable is stressed. You will find reference to the name in one of the naughtier parts of the Holy Bible (King James Version, Ezekiel Chapter 23):

 23: ¹The word of the Lord came again unto me, saying,

² Son of man, there were two women, the daughters of one mother:

³ And they committed whoredoms in Egypt; they committed whoredoms in their youth: there were their breasts pressed, and there they bruised the teats of their virginity.

⁴ And the names of them were Aholah the elder, and Aholibah her sister: and they were mine, and they bare sons and daughters. Thus were their names; Samaria is Aholah, and Jerusalem Aholibah.

   Jeremy continues, unabashed:  Here is a photograph of another  Udea turmalis.  I think it is rather larger than the one shown on July 3.  There is a size difference between the sexes of many butterflies and moths, the female (who has to carry ova) usually being larger.  Unfortunately I didn’t measure the July 3 one.  Today’s one, shown below, was 19 mm from the tips of the labial palpi to the apex of the forewings.   (If you don’t know what labial palpi are, have a look at the photo; have a guess, and you’ll probably be right.)  These two moths were reared from a dense mass of 11 caterpillars crammed together with masses of frass in the head of an Edible Thistle Cirsium edule.  Sorry the palpi are out of focus – wrong camera setting!

Udea turmalis (Lep.: Crambidae)  Jeremy Tatum

More tomorrow…

July 5 morning

  Reminder: Monthly Butterfly Walk on Sunday, 1:00 pm, Mount Tolmie.  A formal notice will be posted on the next Invert Alert posting – probably this afternoon or evening.

   Jeremy Tatum writes:   On Wednesday evening, July 3, at 6:30 pm, I saw three Painted Ladies and one West Coast Lady at the top of Mount Douglas.  Sorry, I forgot to post this earlier, though there’s probably a good chance that the West Coast Lady is still there.  It was on the far side of the teacup. Yesterday, July 4, at 6:30 pm, I saw two Painted Ladies at the top of Mount Tolmie.

Jochen Möhr’s moths in Metchosin yesterday morning:

1 Callizzia amorata

2 Eulithis xylina

1 Homorthodes hanhami

4 Lacinipolia strigicollis

1 Lophocampa maculata

3 Nadata gibbosa

1 Sicya crocearia

1 Smerinthus cerisyi (same individual as last two days)

1 Coryphista meadii

Spotted Tiger Moth Lophocampa maculata (Lep.: Erebidae – Arctiinae) Jochen Möhr

Coryphista meadii (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Möhr

Callizzia amorata (Lep.: Uraniidae)  Jochen Möhr

Smerinthus cerisyi (Lep.: Sphingidae)  Jochen Möhr

Smerinthus cerisyi (Lep.: Sphingidae)  Jochen Möhr

   Cheryl Hoyle sends pictures of two grasshoppers.  In spite of the difference in colour, they are probably both the same species.  They are not in their final instar, and this makes exact identification difficult, though Claudia Copley writes that they are in the genus Melanoplus.

Melanoplus sp. (Orth.: Acrididae)  Cheryl Hoyle

Melanoplus sp. (Orth.: Acrididae)  Cheryl Hoyle

   Cheryl sends pictures of a Lorquin’s Admiral and a Satyr Comma from Lochside trail by Blenkinsop Lake, July 4.  It is good to know this year that we still have some Satyr Commas around – especially from that location.

Lorquin’s Admiral Limenitis lorquini (Lep.: Nymphalidae)  Cheryl Hoyle

Satyr Comma Polygonia satyrus (Lep.: Nymphalidae)  Cheryl Hoyle

   Layla Munger sends a photograph of Idaea dimidiata  from the siding of a house in the Royal Oak area, June 30.

Idaea dimidiata (Lep.: Geometridae)  Layla Munger

   She also sends a photograph of a Malacosoma sp.  That is the adult of one of our two species of “tent caterpillar”, M. californicum and M. disstria.  It is interesting and sobering that, although the two species are so abundant and so familiar, and the caterpillars are so different, we cannot be entirely sure which of the two this is!  We need to work a bit harder on these!

Malacosoma californicum/disstria  (Lep.: Lasiocampidae) Layla Munger

2019 July 4

   Jeremy Tatum writes:  If you go to the Cairn Road entrance to Highrock Park (Esquimalt), you will see a large poster encouraging you to visit the park in the Spring to see the butterflies there.  There are photographs of three butterflies on the poster:  Propertius Duskywing, Anise Swallowtail, and Western Pine Elfin.  One would expect the Propertius Duskywing, of course, though you’d need a bit of luck to see an Anise Swallowtail.  But a Western Pine Elfin?  Are there really some there, or is it a mistake?  Who knows?  The only way to find out is to visit the park in the Spring and see what you can find.

   At the nature house in Goldstream Park today I saw an Idaea dimidiata and an out-of-camera-reach Clemensia albata.   At the nature house at Swan Lake today I saw an Aseptis binotata and out-of-camera-reach Eulithis xylina and Hemithea aestivaria.

Idaea dimidiata (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jeremy Tatum

Aseptis binotata Lep.: Noctuidae)  Jeremy Tatum

   Val George writes:  Yesterday, July 3, I did a quick drive up the Nanaimo River Road to check out the dogbane patches (49.078922/-124.051886).  I saw one each of only three butterfly species:  Grey Hairstreak, Western Tiger Swallowtail, Mylitta Crescent.

Male Mylitta Crescent Phyciodes mylitta (Lep.: Nymphalidae) Val George

   Scott Gilmore writes from Lantzville:  I found these newly hatched hemiptera on my Ceanothus plant.

Jeremy Tatum comments:  They look very like the similar bugs that Ann Tiplady found recently – see the June 29 Invertebrate Alert.  I believe they are pentatomids.   What remarkably neat caps on the eggs!

Probably pentatomid bugs (Hem.: Pentatomidae)  Scott Gilmore

Probably pentatomid bugs (Hem.: Pentatomidae)  Scott Gilmore

   Bryan Gates writes:  My Red Alders continue to produce interesting beasts.  This shiny black beetle, approximately 6 mm long (excluding the antennae), was superabundant on the red alders here at Saratoga Beach during the last week of May 2019. The adults were eating roundish holes in the alder leaves and copulation was observed.   Now, on July 3, only one adult could be found, but this black larva, also about 6 to 7 mm long, is very common on the leaves and is eating just the green tissue on the top surface of the leaves. I assume that one has produced the other.

  Jeremy Tatum writes:  It is a leaf beetle of the Family Chrysomelidae – a Family so large that many coleopterists despair!   But Scott Gilmore suggests:  I would guess from the genus Altica.  [That’s probably rather better than a guess, from Scott!]

Probably Altica sp. (Col.: Chrysomelidae)  Bryan Gates

Probably Altica sp. (Col.: Chrysomelidae)  Bryan Gates

More tomorrow…