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.

August 30

2017 August 30

 

   Jochen Moehr writes from Metchosin:  At the North-eastern end of Duke Road in Metchosin, across from the bus stop, there is a nice stand of Jewel Weed (Impatiens capensis) on one side of the road.  It is a nice little micro eco system.  Ants cultivate crowds of aphids on the stems, which again are feasted on by what looks like Asian Lady beetles Harmonia axyridis, their larvae, by wasps and even flies.  I attach a few pictures taken there today, Tue. Aug. 29, 2017. 

 

Aphids and ants     Jochen Moehr

 

Aphids, a yellowjacket and a ladybird     Jochen Moehr

The ladybird is Harmonia axyridis.  The wasp is Vespula pensylvanica

 

 

 


Bombus vosnesenskii  (Hym.: Apidae)  Jochen Moehr

 

       We are grateful to Sean McCann for the identification of the wasp and the bee.

Ladybird larva (Col.: Coccinellidae)   Jochen Moehr

 

Ladybird pupae (Col.: Coccinellidae)   Jochen Moehr

 

Fly  (Dip.: Tachinidae)    Jochen Moehr

 

 

 

   Jeremy Tatum writes:  The slender unknown caterpillar that I showed on August 24 and 28 is now a little larger and it has turned out to be a species of Zale.

 


Zale sp.:  (Lep.: Erebidae – Erebinae)  Jeremy Tatum

 

 

   Jeremy Tatum writes:  On August 28 I showed a photograph of a batch of 596 ova of a Large Yellow Underwing moth from an Aspen leaf in Bow Park.  Today in a nearby Red Oak tree just a few yards away I found two more batches.  They were on adjacent leaves on the same twig, inches from each other.  On the other hand the two batches of eggs are different colours.  I leave the reader to speculate as to whether the two batches were laid by the some individual moth, or by two separate individuals.  It is interesting that, although the caterpillars of pronuba usually feed on low-growing herbs, the ova ore often (not invariably) laid on the leaf of a tree, allowing the newly-hatched larvae to drop down into the vegetation below.

 

1513 ova of a Large Yellow Underwing Noctua pronuba (Lep.: Noctuidae)

 Jeremy Tatum

 

1923 ova of a Large Yellow Underwing Noctua pronuba (Lep.: Noctuidae)

 Jeremy Tatum

 

   There’s more in the queue, but that’ll have to do for today.