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.

January 29

2019 January 29

 

   Mark Wynja writes with sadness of the destruction of one of the best butterfly areas on Vancouver Island.  He writes:

This WAS the best spot to find butterflies in the Nanaimo area. It was also one the best places on Vancouver Island rivaling Mount Cokely and Mount Washington. Known as Km14 of the Nanaimo River Road. About 6 km of this road has had all the trees removed along the north side. For reference, you can see the large boulder in both photos, centered on the before photo and on the far left on the after photo. Heavy equipment has heavily damaged the roadside meadow of spreading dogbane and a nearby wetland has been obliterated.

                                                                                                                                 Mark Wynja

                                                                                                                                                Mark Wynja

                                               

 

January 25

2019 January 25

 

   Jeremy Tatum writes:  Here is an Egira hiemalis from the wall of my apartment building in Saanich this morning.


Egira hiemalis (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Jeremy Tatum

 

 

      On January 12 we posted a photograph, by Sher Falls, of a Thick-headed fly Physocephala burgessi, perched on an Ox-eye Daisy, and we speculated on whether the fly was aware of the crab spider lurking underneath the flower.  This reminded Jeremy Gatten of a very similar photograph that he took a few years ago on Mount Washington, of the same species of fly on the same species of flower, also with a crab spider there.  But this time the fly, evidently initially unaware of the spider, is by now all too very much aware of it!

 

 

Physocephala burgessi (Dip.: Conopidae) and Misumena vatia (Ara.: Thomisidae)   Jeremy Gatten

 

January 24

2019 January 24

 

   The early spring moths are starting to appear!  Can butterflies be far behind?  Jeremy Gatten reports 3 Phigalia plumogeraria, 1 Hypena californica, and 1 Egira hiemalis from the walls of the Metchosin Community Hall yesterday, January 23.  He sends photographs of one of each.

 


Phigalia plumogeraria (Lep.: Geometridae)   Jeremy Gatten

 

 


Hypena californica (Lep.: Erebidae)  Jeremy Gatten

 


Egira hiemalis (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Jeremy Gatten

 

 

January 22

2019 January 22

 

   On June 16 we posted a picture of a bright green chrysalis of a Sara Orangetip that Jochen Möhr had found in his Metchosin garden.  These chrysalides are very clever.  In the late summer, when the grass is all turned to straw, the chrysalis changes to a straw-colour.   Later, in the winter, when much of the vegetation is almost black, the chrysalis turns black.  Jochen sends pictures of the chrysalis as it was in June, and as it is now.

Sara Orangetip Anthocharis sara (Lep.: Pieridae)   2018 June     Jochen Möhr

 

Sara Orangetip Anthocharis sara (Lep.: Pieridae)   2019 January     Jochen Möhr

 

 

January 21

2019 January 21

 

   Just to let viewers know that we now have a volunteer to coordinate the sending of butterfly records to eButterfly.   We’ll let you know closer to the butterfly season, and when we have thought through how to organise it, and who is going to do what, just how it will work.   Just a few more weeks before butterflies re-appear!  Jeremy Tatum