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.

October 15

2018 October 15

 

   Jeremy Tatum writes:  Four Cabbage Whites at McMicking Point this afternoon.

 

October 14

2018 October 14

 

   Jeremy Tatum writes: Today I saw one Cabbage White at Longview Farms, and another one at Turgoose Point.

October 13

2018 October 13

 

   Jeremy Tatum writes:  Two Cabbage Whites today at Mount Newton Cross Road, and two more at Island View Road.

October 12

2018 October 12

 

   On October 10, Aziza photographed this very black moth at the Swan Lake nature house.  Jeremy Tatum writes:  This has puizzled me, for it is just the size and shape of a Winter Moth¸ though I have never seen one so completely black as this, and it is rather early – they usually appear in November.  But I can’t think of what else it might be, so I am labelling it as a maybe Winter Moth.

 

Maybe Winter Moth Operophtera brumata (Lep.: Geometridae)  Aziza Cooper

 

   Gordon Hart writes from his Highlands home:  No butterflies today, but we did see this nice Girdler Moth on Buddleia (Butterfly Bush) flowers.

Girdler Moth Dargida procinctus (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Gordon Hart

October 11

2018 October 11

 

   Jeremy Tatum writes:  This is the second time this season that I have found this bug on my bed – but I swear to you it is not a Bed Bug. It is a Western Conifer Seed Bug.  I don’t know why it likes my bed – I have no conifer seeds to offer it.

 

Western Conifer Seed Bug Leptoglossus occidentalis (Hem.: Coreidae)

Jeremy Tatum

 

   Here is the cocoon of a Polyphemus Moth:

Polyphemus Moth Antheraea polyphemus  (Lep.: Saturniidae)   Jeremy Tatum

  

 

   Banded Woolly Bears are showing up now.   Here is one photographed by Sonia Voicescu this afternoon on the Lochside Trail next to Michell’s Farm.

Banded Woolly Bear Pyrrharctia isabella (Lep.: Erebidae – Arctiinae)  Sonia Voicescu

 

   Libby Avis writes from Port Alberni:  Things are starting to wind down here. So far this week, a couple of Ceranemota, Tetracis jubararia, Ennomos magnaria, Philedia punctomacularia, Sunira decipiens, Agrotis ipsilon, Pleromelloida cinerea and Lithophane innominata. Autographa californica still around in the garden. Definitely well into the fall species!

   Gordon Hart writes:  Yesterday at Swan Lake, while I was watching Yellow-rumped Warblers eating Red Osier Dogwood berries, a fresh Red Admiral flew by landing on some brambles.

Red Admiral Vanessa atalanta (Lep.: Nymphalidae)  Gordon Hart