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.

2023 December 13

2023 December 13

   Val George sends a photograph of an Erannis sp. at Swan Lake, December 11.  The reddish hue arises from a nearby lamp.

Erannis defoliaria/vancouverensis  (Lep.: Geometridae)  Val George

   Jochen Möhr sends photographs of insects posing challenging identification problems, from Metchosin, December 11.

   The first is a Green Lacewing.  Lacewing expert Dr Cara Gibson comments that it’s a beautiful photograph of a beautiful animal, but professional caution says that she needs to examine some tiny detail more closely before identification at the species level – so we’ll leave it at Family level, (Chrysopidae).

Green Lacewing (Neu.: Chrysopidae)  Jochen Möhr

 

We are not sure, writes Jeremy Tatum, whether the second insect is a small crane fly (Tipulidae) or a winter gnat  (Trichoceridae), so we’ll have to leave it as either/or for now.

Crane fly (Tipulidae) or winter gnat (Trichoceridae) (Diptera)   Jochen Möhr