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.

July 19 part 1

2016 July 19 part 1

 

   Liam Singh sent a photograph of a grasshopper on July 7, and sends photographs of dragonflies and a beetle from Beaver Lake Ponds on July 18.  Thanks to Claudia Copley for the grasshopper identification, and Scott Gilmore for the beetle.  Liam saw 12 species of dragon/damselflies at the Ponds:

 

Paddle-tailed Darner

Blue-eyed Darner

Darner sp.

Western Pondhawk

Eight-spotted Skimmer

Four-spotted Skimmer

Blue Dasher

Common Whitetail

Cardinal Meadowhawk

Striped Meadowhawk

Western Red Damselfly

Tule Bluet

Pacific Forktail

 

 Two-striped Grasshopper Melanoplus bivittatus (Orth.: Acrididae)  Liam Singh

 

Striped Meadowhawk  Sympetrum pallipes (Odo.: Libellulidae)  Liam Singh

 

Tule Bluet Enallagma carunculatum (Odo.: Coenagrionidae)

Liam Singh

Pacific Forktail Ischnura cervula (Odo.: Coenagrionidae)  Liam Singh

 Four-spotted Skimmer Libellula quadrimaculata (Odo.: Libellulidae)  Liam Singh

 

Aquatic leaf beetle (Col.: Chrysomelidae – Donaciinae)  Liam Singh

 

 

 

July 17 evening

2016 July 17 evening

 

   Annie Pang sends another bee photograph from Gorge Park.

 

Halictus rubicundus (Hym.: Halictidae)   Annie Pang

 

  Bryan Gates writes:  This moth was in my daughter’s house in south Oak Bay.

 Small Magpie Moth Eurrhypara hortulata (Lep.: Crambidae)  Bryan Gates

July 16 morning

2016 July 17, morning

 

   Annie Pang sends some pictures from Gorge Park.  Thanks to Linc Best for Hymenoptera identifications.

 

Sceliphron caementarium (Hym.:  Sphecidae)  Annie Pang


 Woodland Skipper Ochlodes sylvanoides (Lep.: Hesperiidae)  Annie Pang

Woodland Skipper Ochlodes sylvanoides (Lep.: Hesperiidae)  Annie Pang

 Lasioglossum sp. (Hym.:  Halictidae)   Annie Pang

 

 

 Lasioglossum sp. (Hym.:  Halictidae)   Annie Pang

 

 

   Mike Yip writes:  Late spring up Mount Washington. We walked up the ski run on July 15 and saw 8 Western Meadow Fritillaries, 4 parnassian sp., 2  Hoary (“Zephyr”) Commas, and a fly-by possible Silvery Blue. At the top there were several Great Arctics. There are still patches of snow at the top.

 

Western Meadow Fritillary Boloria epithore (Lep.: Nymphalidae)  Mike Yip

 Hoary (“Zephyr”) Comma Polygonia gracilis zephyrus (Lep.: Nymphalidae) Mike Yip

 

Great Arctic Oeneis nevadensis (Lep.: Nymphalidae – Satyrinae)  Mike Yip

 

 

   Bill Savale and Jeremy Tatum walked along the railway line at Cowichan Station on July 16.  Cloudy, so not many butterflies, but we saw 1 Western Tiger Swallowtail, 1 Lorquin’s Admiral and 3 Margined Whites, as well as a Pacific Spiketail dragonfly.

July 15

2106 July 15

 

   Annie Pang sends some pictures from Gorge Park.

 

Osmia lignaria (Hym.: Megachilidae)  Annie Pang

 

Hover fly (Dip.: Syrphidae)    Annie Pang

 

Autographa californica (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Annie Pang

 

Halictus rubicundus (Hym.:  Halictidae)   Annie Pang

 

 

   Rosemary Jorna sends photographs from the Kemp Lake area.  Thanks to Scott Gilmore for identifying the beetle as Leptura obliterata.  The bug is Philaenus spumaria, a spittle bug. The nymph of this bug makes the little masses of frothy spittle that we see on low-down vegetation.

 

Leptura obliterata (Col.: Cerambycidae)  Rosemary Jorna

 

Philaenus spumarius (Hem.: Cercopidae)  Rosemary Jorna

 

 

Aziza Cooper writes:  In Uplands Park near the corner of Dorset and Midland Roads on Wednesday, July 13, I saw my first Woodland Skipper of the year.

 

And Jeremy Tatum saw his first Pine White of the year at UVic, July 15.

 

Woodland Skipper Ochlodes sylvanoides  (Lep.: Hesperiidae)  Aziza Cooper

 

 

 

 

July 14

2016 July 14

 

MONTHLY BUTTERFLY COUNT

 

Gordon Hart writes:

 

Hello Butterfly Counters!

The next butterfly count period will begin Saturday July 16 running until Sunday July 24. Please use the submission form on the VNHS website: www.vicnhs.bc.ca/?p=33

Numbers appear to be down now, but there can still be quite a variety on a good day. We should have Woodland Skippers and Pine Whites on this count, as well as some of the continuing species.

 

If you need suggestions for a place to count, please email me. If we get more than one count for a location, I will use the high numbers for each species. If you want to be removed from this list, please let me know. If you know someone who wants to be on the list, please ask them to email me.

 

The next butterfly walk will be on Sunday August 7, meeting at Mt Tolmie, at 1 p.m. The trip is weather-dependent and I will send out another reminder closer to the date.

Thanks for participating in the count!

 

Gordon Hart,

Butterfly count coordinator 

 

Gordon continues (from the Highlands District:  We were on the back deck Wednesday evening (July 13) looking for bats when we noticed two large Sphinx moths nectaring on pots of petunias. I was not able to get pictures because of the low light, but I found one this morning in the driveway.

 

Sphinx perelegans (Lep.: Sphingidae)   Gordon Hart

 

 

   Jeremy Tatum comments:  Sphinx vashti and S. perelegans  are somewhat similar hawk moths, perelegans being a little larger than vashti.  I used to think that vashti was the common one in our area, but since this website started in 2010, we have had five images of perelegans and none yet of vashti.