2018 October 24

   Val George writes:  During the past week or so I’ve found 15 – 20 of these Cabbage White caterpillars on the walls of my house in Oak Bay.  They’ve moved from a nearby patch of kale where they’ve been feeding  (much to my annoyance) and are presumably looking for places to pupate.

Cabbage White Pieris rapae (Lep.: Pieridae)  Val George

2018 October 23

   A lttle late for an “Alert” – but interesting enough to post anyway.  Victoria West photographed this huge beetle on Mount Douglas on August 29, 2018 at 9:44 pm.  She writes:  I was using my cell phone flashlight to navigate the pathway from the upper parking lot to the lookout platform when I saw this along the pathway. I believe it is a female, both because of its size and it appeared to be laying eggs with an ovipositor when I first saw it but it pulled it back in when the light was focussed on it.

   Thanks to Scott Gilmore for confirming its identification as a female Prionus californicus.  Scott writes:  Females tend to have antennae about half the length of the body while males are 2/3 body length. 

Prionus californicus (Col.: Cerambycidae)  Victoria West

2018 October 21

   Jeff Gaskin writes:  Yesterday,  October 20 at Martindale Flats just south of Garcia farms there were three or four Cabbage Whites.  Jeremy Tatum adds:  Yes, I saw two there today, plus another one at Maber Flats.  Also, several Banded Woolly Bear caterpillars at Quick’s Bottom.

2018 October 20

   Jeremy Tatum writes:  This moth was at my Saanich apartment this morning:

Drepanulatrix monicaria (Lep.: Geometridae)   Jeremy Tatum

   Two male millipedes were standing at the street corner, when they spotted a beautiful female millipede walking along the other side of the road.  Said one male millipede to the other:  “Boy!  Just have an eyeful of that!   What a beautiful pair of legs pair of legs pair of legs pair of legs pair of legs pair of legs pair of legs pair of legs pair of legs…”

  This one appeared indoors in my office at UVic yesterday.  It wouldn’t keep still enough for a sharp photograph.  Can anyone out there identify it, even if only to Family?  Or Suborder?

Millipede (Polydesmida)   Jeremy Tatum

     There were about five Cabbage Whites  at McMicking Point this afternoon.

2018 October 19

   Jeremy Tatum writes:  Yesterday I showed a photograph of a lycaenid caterpillar photographed by Nathan Fisk on Beach Knotweed – a common foodplant of the Purplish Copper.    I cautioned, however, that the caterpillar more closely resembled that of a Grey Hairstreak.   I am now wholly convinced that it is indeed a Grey Hairstreak, and I have now labelled it as such.  Here is an enlargement of a second photograph by Nathan of the caterpillar.   On comparison with my photograph of a Grey Hairstreak caterpillar at    facweb.furman.edu/~snyderjohn/tatum/098-101.htm     there can now be little doubt of the identity.

Grey Hairstreak Strymon melinus (Lep.: Lycaenidae)   Nathan Fisk

   Jeremy Tatum writes:  One Cabbage White, Martindale Road, this afternoon.  Also a big, brightly-coloured moth flew past me, almost colliding with my head.  I believe it was probably a Garden Tiger Arctia caja.