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.

June 3

2015 June 15

 

   Annie Pang sends photographs of a number of insects.  I’ll have a stab at identifying them, though I’m not an expert! – Jeremy Tatum

 

The first one looks like a greenbottle.  There are several species, and I don’t think I can go further.

 

Greenbottle fly.  Probably Lucilia sp. (Dip.:  Calliphoridae)   Annie Pang

   I’m pretty sure that this one is Eristalis tenax

 

Drone Fly Eristalis tenax (Dip.: Syrphidae)   Annie Pang

 

Not sure what the next one is.  Stratiomyidae?   Syrphidae?

 

Unknown (Dip.:  Stratiomyidae?  Syrphidae?)   Annie Pang

The next one is probably a young nymph of a cicadellid leafhopper, and can correctly be called a bug.

 

Probable leafhopper nymph (Hem.: Cicadellidae)  Annie Pang

 

 

Val George writes:   This afternoon, June 3, there was a West Coast Lady nectaring on Gumweed near the Oak Bay Marina.