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.

2023 May 19 evening

2023 May 19 evening

 

 

Ken Vaughan sends a picture of an Anise Swallowtail from Mount Tolmie this morning.

 

 

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Anise Swallowtail Papilio zelicaon  (Lep.: Papilionidae)  Ken Vaughan

   Kirsten Mills writes:  Today, May 19, Jeff Gaskin and I were on Stamps Road in Cowichan. Is this an Arctic Skipper? It would be a lifer for both of us.  Answer:  Yes!!! Carterocephalus palaemon! A great find!

 

   Incidentally, writes Jeremy Tatum, in the UK this butterfly has been known for a long time as the Chequered Skipper, which is one of several reasons that I prefer not to use that name for our Pyrgus ruralis.

 

 

 

 

 

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Arctic Skipper Carterocephalus palaemon  (Lep.: Hesperiidae)

  Kirsten Mills

   Jeremy Tatum writes:  Today I saw a Mourning Cloak and a Pale Tiger Swallowtail along Lochside Drive north of Blenkinsop Lake.  At 5:15 pm I was at the top of Christmas Hill, where I saw two Pale Tiger Swallowtails, but no hill-topping nymphalids.   By way of compensation I found this caterpillar with a 12-syllable name on a Garry Oak:

 

 

 

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Hydriomena nubilofasciata (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jeremy Tatum

 

 

 

 

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Hydriomena nubilofasciata (Lep.: Geometridae) Jeremy Tatum