2023 May 2

 

   Ian Cooper sends a photograph , from the Galloping Goose Trail at Harriet Road, of a crab
spider that not all viewers may immediately recognize as Misumena vatia.   But that indeed is what it is.  It is a male, and very different in appearance from the familiar female.  [See April 30 morning for a female.]

Male Misumena vatia  (Ara.: Thomisidae)  Ian Cooper

  The spider below is from the Family Philodromidae, known as “running crab spiders”.  Not to be confused with just “crab spiders” of the Family Thomisidae.

Tibellus oblongus (Ara.: Philodromidae)  Ian Cooper

   And now, also from the Galloping Goose Trail at View Royal, three ladybirds with different numbers of spots:

Two-spotted Lady Beetle Adalia bipunctata (Col.: Coccinellidae)

Ian Cooper

Seven-spotted Lady Beetle  Coccinella septempunctata

(Col.: Coccinellidae)

 Ian Cooper

Fourteen-spotted Lady Beetle Calvia quatuordecimguttata 

(Col.: Coccinellidae)

 Ian Cooper

   I failed Latin, writes Jeremy Tatum, but I seem to remember that the Latin for 14 is
quattuordecim.   The “correct” spelling of a scientific name is supposed to be the spelling that the author used, rightly or wrongly, in the original scientific description of an organism.  Well, apparently Linnaeus spelled it 14-punctata, which doesn’t help.  We are not supposed to use numbers in scientific names these days, so, somewhere along the line, someone presumably substituted “quatuordecim” for “14” – and the misspelling has stuck.  We are not
allowed to correct it!

   Today, May 2,  Aziza Cooper found two or more Western Brown Elfins on the blackberry bushes below the Mount Tolmie reservoir on the side opposite to the road.   And she and Jeremy Tatum saw four or five Mourning Cloaks along Lochside Drive north of Blenkinsop Lake, as well as a Western Spring Azure and a Satyr Comma.

 

Western Brown Elfin Incisalia iroides  (Lep.: Lycaenidae)  Aziza Cooper