2023 June 1 evening

    Jeff Gaskin reports that on Monday May29, in Esquimalt Gorge Park he saw a Twelve-spotted Skimmer and a Western Pondhawk near the ponds in the Japanese gardens.

Jeremy Tatum shows a photograph of a Hypena californica, reared from the caterpillar shown on May 19, morning.   Moths of the genus Hypena are remarkable for the long forward-projecting labial palpi in the adult, and the caterpillars, which have only three pairs of mid-abdominal prolegs.   The long palpi have given rise to the name “snouts” for this genus, and so Hypena californica could perhaps be called the California Snout.  This one ecloded (emerged) today and was released to the nettle patches on Lochside Drive north of Blenkinsop Lake.

 
Hypena californica (Lep.: Erebidae – Hypeninae)    Jeremy Tatum