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 23 morning

2020 July 23 morning

 

   Val George writes:  July 22, I saw my first Pine Whites of the year.  There were 6 or 7 flying around the tops of a Douglas Fir stand at Witty’s Lagoon.

 

Scott Gilmore got these photos of a water mite from Battleship Lake in Strathcona Provincial Park on the 20th July.   Dr Heather Proctor tells us that it is in the Superfamily Hygrobatoidea, and probably in the Family Pionidae, and possibly genus Piona.  In order to be more certain, she would need to see the genital plates, which might be visible in a ventral view, but are often obscured by other internal organs.

 

Invert Alert has had very few photographs of aquatic invertebrates.  We hope more photographers will rise to the challenge.

 

Possibly Piona (Acari: Pionidae)  Scott Gilmore

 

Possibly Piona (Acari: Pionidae)  Scott Gilmore

Possibly Piona (Acari: Pionidae)  Scott Gilmore