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 23

2019 August 23

 

   Anne Scarfe found this cocoon at her Gordon Head house on August 20.   It is an arctiine cocoon, probably Lophocampa.  Jeremy Tatum writes:   I’m not sure whether it is a very late L. argentata (in which case the moth will emerge soon), or a very early L. maculata (in which case the moth will emerge next spring).

 


Lophocampa sp. (Lep.: Erebidae – Arctiinae)  Ann Scarfe

 

   Scott Gilmore sends a photograph of a caterpillar found in his Lantzville garden.  It is Panthea sp., a genus whose recognized species or subspecies change from time to time.  This one is perhaps best labeled as Panthea virginarius.

 


Panthea virginarius (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Scott Gilmore

 


Panthea virginarius (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Scott Gilmore

 


Panthea virginarius (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Scott Gilmore

 

  Aziza Cooper photographed a moth and some bugs near Swan Lake on August 11.  The bugs are pentatomids, but they are nymphs and we have not yet been able to identify them further.

 

Silver-spotted Tiger Moth Lophocampa argentata (Lep.: Erebidae – Arctiinae)  Aziza Cooper

Pentatomid bug nymphs  (Hem.: Pentatomidae)  Aziza Cooper