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.

2024 February 29

2024 February 29

  More miscellaneous invertebrates by Ian Cooper.

Jeremy Tatum writes:  The conspicuous dark-bordered pale dorsal stripe on the caterpillar below is more pronounced than is usual for Noctua pronuba, so it may be something else – nevertheless I am fairly certain that it is indeed N. pronuba.

Probably Noctua pronuba (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Ian Cooper

 

Jeremy writes, of the fly below:  I don’t know what species this is.  In spite of its short antennae, I think it is of the group Nematocera (thread-horns) – a female (the males usually have longer and more ornate antennae).  If anyone knows what it is, please do let us know.

Unidentified fly (Dip.: probably Nematocera)  Ian Cooper

Deroceras reticulatum  (Pul.:  Agriolimacidae)   Ian Cooper

 

Dr Frans Janssen tells us that the springtail below is a new, undescribed, species of Ptenothrix.

Globose springtail,  Ptenothrix  sp. nov. (Coll.: Dicyrtomenidae)   Ian Cooper

Globose springtail, Ptenothrix  sp. nov.  (Coll.: Dicyrtomenidae)   Ian Cooper