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.

May 22

2015 May 22

 

   Gordon Hart sends some pictures from the power lines that run parallel to Prospect Lake Road, on May 21.

 

Metarrhanthis duaria (Lep.: Geometridae)  Gordon Hart

 

Adela septentrionella (Lep.: Incurvariidae)  Gordon Hart

 

Four-spotted Skimmer Libellula quadrimaculata (Odo.: Libellulidae)  Gordon Hart

Swift Forktail Ischnura erratica (Odo.: Coenagrionidae) Gordon Hart

 

   Today, May 22, Gordon writes that his wife picked dozens of beetles off their Coreopsis plants.  He noted that he and Ann Nightingale has seen similar beetles on May at Panama Flats, where they feed on the related Bidens.  Appropriately they are known in horticultural circles as the Coreopsis Beetle Calligrapha californica.

Coreopsis Beetle Calligrapha californica (Col.: Chrysomelidae) Gordon Hart

 

Coreopsis Beetle Calligrapha californica (Col.: Chrysomelidae) Gordon Hart

 

 

 

   Jeremy Tatum writes:  The tiny caterpillar burrowing its way into the base of a Gaultheria (Salal) flower below is a first instar caterpillar, just out of its egg, of the Western Brown Elfin.  I couldn’t help noticing it while I was strolling along the Munn Road powerline yesterday.

 

Western Brown Elfin Incisalia iroides (Lep.: Lycaenidae) Jeremy Tatum