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.

December 8

2020 December 8

 

An earwig, and slugs galore from Colquitz River Park, by Ian Cooper:

 

Male Common Earwig  Forficula auricularia (Derm.: Forficulidae)  Ian Cooper


Limax maximus (Pul.: Limacidae)  Ian Cooper


Deroceras reticulatum (Pul.: Agriolimacidae) Ian Cooper


Arion sp. (possibly circumstriptus) (Pul.: Arionidae)  Ian Cooper

   Robert Forsyth comments:  The hole in the top of the mantle (not the pneumostome, which is on the side, but not clear here) would seem to be a wound (failed predation, or perhaps disease). There are slugs (Hemphillia spp.) with an area of the dorsal mantle ‘cut away’ to expose a flat shell, but this isn’t one of them. This Arion is somewhat reminiscent of Arion circumscriptus, but I wouldn’t say for certain.

 


 Top:  Deroceras reticulatum (Pul.: Agriolimacidae)

Bottom:  Oxychilus draparnaudi (Pul.: Daubebariidae)

Ian Cooper

Possibly a young Limax maximus (Pul.: Limacidae)  Ian Cooper

   We are continuing to make efforts to distinguish between the Western and European Winter Moths, Operophtera occidentalis  and O. brumata.  Jochen Möhr writes from Metchosin:

 

This morning, 13 Operophtera, 9 I would call brumata, and 4 occidentalis.  I attach the images of 7 of them, which I was able to reach with the tripod-mounted camera.

 

Jeremy Tatum writes:   I agree that the first two may be occidentalis, though without any huge degree of certainty.     I would call the remaining five brumata, but again without any pretence of certainty.

 

We’d encourage moth-ers to try to get some good photos of winter moths at the Goldstream Park Nature House.  Some of them there look like very obvious occidentalis.    Amazingly, I haven’t seen any of either species at my Saanich apartment building for some weeks.

 


Operophtera (probably occidentalis)  (Lep.: Geometridae)   Jochen Möhr


Operophtera (probably occidentalis)  (Lep.: Geometridae)   Jochen Möhr


Operophtera (brumata?)  (Lep.: Geometridae)   Jochen Möhr


Operophtera brumata (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Möhr


Operophtera brumata (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Möhr


Operophtera brumata (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Möhr


Operophtera (brumata?)   (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Möhr