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.

December 6

2020 December 6

 

   More tiny, curious creatures from Colquitz River Park by Ian Cooper.  We are grateful to Charlene Wood, who figured out what they are!

 

Lace bug Acalypta sp. (Hem.: Tingidae)  Ian Cooper

Ground beetle Notiophilus sp. (Col.: Carabidae)  Ian Cooper

Barklouse (Psocodea: probably Lepidopsocidae)  Ian Cooper

(Family suggested by Dr E. Mockford.)

I asked Dr Mockford about the apparent lack of wings of this specimen.  He replied: There are some barklice  in which some adults have wings and others do not.  In some the wings in one sex, usually females, are small knobs while the other sex has normal wings.  There are a few in which some individuals have normal wings and others have no trace of wings. There are some forms, the booklice, genus Liposcelis, in which there is no trace of wings in either sex.  In that group, the males are usually smaller than the females and undergo one fewer nymphal instars.

After a gap of four mothless nights in Metchosin, Jochen Möhr photographed a Winter Moth (to be expected) and a Drepanulatrix (rather later in the year than expected).

 


Operophtera brumata (Lep.: Geometridae) Jochen Möhr


Drepanulatrix secundaria/monicaria (Lep. Geometridae) Jochen Möhr

   Jeremy Tatum photographed this Grey Firebrat in his Saanich apartment this morning.  I am still waiting for a photograph from someone of the genuine Silverfish Lepisma saccharina.

 


Ctenolepisma longicaudata (Thysanura: Lepismatidae) Jeremy Tatum

   Here’s another from Ian Cooper.  It’s amazing what’s down there at our feet that many of us are unaware of.

Flat-backed millipede (Polydesmida: probably Eurymerodesmidae  Ian Cooper