2017 April 9

   Wanted!   Someone who can identify snails for us.  Rosemary Jorna photographed the three snails below at Ayum Creek yesterday.  The first is Monadenia fidelis, but we need help with the other two.  Let us know:  jtatum at uvic dot ca

Pacific Sideband Snail Monadenia fidelis (Pul.: Bradybaenidae)  Rosemary Jorna

Snail1 to identify.     Rosemary Jorna

Snail 2 to identify.     Rosemary Jorna

Jeremy Tatum writes:  There are still very few butterflies around, although Mike McGrenere reported a Cabbage White from the corner of Martindale and Lochside today, and Bill Savale mentioned that he had also seen a Cabbage White on Mount Tolmie six days ago.

And just as I am typing this, a message comes in from Devon Parker, saying:  I have my first butterfly of the year today. A Western Brown Elfin was flying around a group of small pine trees at my home in Esquimalt. It was landing at the ends of the branches for some reason.  [I think this is the first report of the species to reach Invert Alert this year  –  Jeremy]

Devon continues:  I also have a moth I found yesterday near my porch in Esquimalt.

Jeremy writes:  A puzzler!   My immediate assumption was that it was either Triphosa haesitata or Coryphista meadii, and I started to check all the supposed differences between these two similar geometrids.  The relative sizes of the wiggles on the outer margin  of the hindwing, the white tornal spot, the exact shape of the many crosslines, etc.  In an earlier version of this posting, I opted for meadii.  Then Libby Avis came to the rescue with the amazing true identity of this moth. (Also correctly identified by Jeremy Gatten.)  I shouldn’t have been looking at the wings at all.  Just look at that stout, robust body!  It’s not even a geometrid!  It’s an erebid (in an earlier clssification a noctuid) – Zale lunata.  The similarity of the wing shape and pattern of all three moths is presumably an example of convergent evolution.  Quite remarkable!

Zale lunata (Lep.: Erebidae – Erebinae)  Devon Parker