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.

July 31

2016 July 31

 

   Annie Pang sends pictures of bees.  Thanks to Linc Best for identifications.

 

 

Ceratina sp. (Hym.: Apidae)  Annie Pang

Halictus rubicundus (Hym.: Halictidae)  Annie Pang

Honey Bee Apis mellifera (Hym.: Apidae)  Annie Pang

 

Jeremy Tatum writes:  Today (July 31) I went to Cordova Spit in search of the Western Branded Skipper. I searched in the southeast corner of the spit, in an area where there are a few crabapple trees.  I looked for skippers nectaring on the Gumweed.  There were lots of hesperiine skippers there, and it was not always easy to see the underside of the hindwings, so a lot of them went unidentified.  I identified those that I could as Woodland Skippers.  I wondered if perhaps I was overlooking the target species or misidentifying the ones I had called Woodlands.  And then at last I saw a genuine Western Branded Skipper nectaring on the Gumweed.  On seeing the underside of the hidwings, there was no mistaking it – and I then realized that the ones I had been calling Woodlands were indeed Woodlands, and the Branded is quite different.

 

On the way back I saw one male Purplish Copper at Island View Beach.