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.

2025 January 9

2025 January 9

No Invertebrate Alert was posted on January 8.

Here are some pictures taken by Ian Cooper in View Royal before dawn on January 8 near the 9 km marker of the Galloping Goose trail.

  Springtails  Orchesella villosa (Coll.: Orchesellidae)   Ian Cooper

Snail-eating Beetle  Scaphinotus angusticollis (Col.: Carabidae)   Ian Cooper
with two mites hitching a ride.

Long-jawed Orb Weaver Metellina sp. (Ara.: Tetragnathidae)   Ian Cooper

Snout mite (Acari:  Bdellidae)   Ian Cooper

Globular springtail, probably Ptenothrix sp.  (Coll.: Dicyrtomidae)   Ian Cooper