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.

June 27

2017 June 27

 

   No response yet for our appeal for an opinion on Peter Boon’s commas on Mount Becher (June 25 entry), but Peter has managed to get a good photograph of the underside, and I think most of us would now agree that the butterfly is the Hoary (“Zephyr”) Comma Polygonia gracilis zephyrus (which Guppy and Shepard list as a full species). [Added later:  Mike Yip concurs.]

 

Hoary (“Zephyr”) Comma Polygonia gracilis zephyrus (Lep.: Nymphalidae)

Peter Boon

 

Has anyone seen any Satyr Commas recently?  This used to be one of our commonest butterflies, but it now seems to have disappeared.

 

Nick Doe sends a photograph of a Polyphemus Moth from Gabriola Island.

 

Polyphemus Moth Antheraea polyphemus

(Lep.: Saturniidae)

Nick Doe