2020 July 18

 

 Invert Alert Problems:

 

   When Invert Alert was first started ten years ago, it was intended mainly as an “Alert”, so that people could report, for example, a rare butterfly such as a sulphur.  Since then it has morphed into a combined photo gallery plus identification service.  This is a welcome development, and it’s great fun doing it, but the problem is that at the height of summer the amount of work becomes overwhelming.  Thus, when a picture is received, provided that the identity of the insect is known, and provided that there are no computer problems or other difficulties (which almost never happens) each photograph takes about ten minutes to process before posting on Invert Alert.  Thus, if there are ten photographs, all of known identities, and there are no other difficulties, that amounts to an hour and forty minutes.

 

A particular difficulty at present concerns bees.  There are numerous species, each with various castes, that are notoriously difficult to identify, and the three experts that we were able to call upon have now left the Province and are no longer easily available to us.  Annie Pang has been doing her best to fill in, but, like most of us, she is an amateur and it is a very large load for her.

 

Today, in particular, I am so overloaded that I have decided that the most practicable thing I can do is not to process most of today’s submissions, and to start again tomorrow with a plea to contributors to limit their submissions to their best-quality work.  I don’t want to set a daily limit per contributor, but prefer to let contributors themselves select their best.   Also please remember that some insects, such as our commonest butterflies, are photographed again and again and again.  I’ll continue to try to identify insects, because I know that in many cases contributors really don’t know.

 

I’m sorry about this, but it is a high-summer problem.  We can probably get back to normal when the number of contributions starts to ease off in October or thereabouts.

 

Jeremy Tatum

 

Now for a very few selections from today’s submissions:

 

   Montana Stanley, a new contributor, sends this picture of a June beetle from Triangle Mountain, July 16.

 

 

Polyphylla crinita (Col.: Scarabaeidae)  Montana Stanley

   Jochen Möhr sends a picture of a Grey Hairstreak from his Metchosin property:

 

Grey Hairstreak Strymon melinus (Lep.: Lycaenidae)  Jochen Möhr

   Rosemary Jorna sends a photograph of a leafcutter bee

 

Female Leaf-cutter bee Megachile sp. (Hym.: Megachilidae)  Rosemary Jorna

   Val George sends a photograph of a rather worn female Purplish Copper from Island View Beach today.

 

Female Purplish Copper Lycaena helloides (Lep.: Lycaenidae)  Val George

 

 

And that, I’m afraid, is all I can manage today!  (8:00 pm)