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 17

2024 January 17

Here are some pictures from Ian Cooper’s January 17 predawn photo shoot in View Royal.

 Fungus Gnat (Dip.: Mycetophilidae)  Ian Cooper

   Those brown things on the underside of the fern leaf are known technically, I believe (writes Jeremy Tatum) as sori.  Just as we can identify the fly from the patterns of the venation on the wings of the fly, and the tarsal spines, so, in like mien, any botanists watching this will doubtless be able to identify the fern  from the sori.

 

 Female Pimoa altioculata (Ara.: Pimoidae)   Ian Cooper

Unidentified linyphiid spider (Ara.: Linyphiidae)   Ian Cooper

 

Snout mite (Acari:  Bdellidae)   Ian Cooper

  

Pseudoscorpion  (Pseudoscorpiones)   Ian Cooper