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.

April 27 morning

2017 April 27 morning

 

   Here are some recent photographs from Thomas Barbin, taken in the Highlands in the last ten days or so.

 Ichneumon wasp (Hym.: Ichneumonidae – Anomaloninae)  Thomas Barbin

Ichneumon wasp (Hym.: Ichneumonidae – Anomaloninae)  Thomas Barbin

 

 

Western Brown Elfin Incisalia iroides (Lep.: Lycaenidae)  Thomas Barbin

 Carpenter Ant Camponotus vicinus (Hym.: Formicidae) Thomas Barbin

 


Myopa sp. (Dip.: Conopidae)  Thomas Barbin

 

 Myopa sp. (Dip.: Conopidae)  Thomas Barbin

 

Cuckoo bee (Hym.: Apidae – Nomadinae) Thomas Barbin

 

Cuckoo bee (Hym.: Apidae – Nomadinae) Thomas Barbin

 

 

San Francisco Lacewing Nothochrysa californica (Neu.: Chrysopidae)

Thomas Barbin

 Sawfly (Hymenoptera – Symphyta)  Thomas Barbin

April 26

2017 April 26

 

   Here are the rest of Jochen Moehr’s photographs (see April 25 posting) – and a big thanks to Libby Avis for identifying them for us!

 

Perizoma curvilinea (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Moehr

Cladaria limitaria (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Moehr

Cladaria limitaria (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Moehr

Cladaria limitaria (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Moehr

 

Melanolophia imitata (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Moehr

Egira crucialis (Lep.: Noctuidae)
Jochen Moehr

 Left:  Hydriomena manzanita   Right:  Venusia obsoleta/pearsalli

 

(Both Lep.: Geometridae)

Jochen Moehr

 

April 25

2107 April 25

 

   Annie Pang sends a photograph of a hover fly (syrphid), from Gorge Park, April 24.  As flies go, syrphids are relatively attractive insects, but are, unfortunately, notoriously difficult to identify to species from photographs. Specialists often want to check out the shape of a tiny structure at the base of the wing, called a calypter.

 

Hover fly (Dip.: Syrphidae)  Annie Pang

   Annie also sends a photograph of a bee fly (Bombyliid).  They are parasitoids of Andrena bees.

 

 

Bee fly Bombylius sp.(Dip.:  Bombyliidae)  Annie Pang

 

 

Rosemary Jorna sends some fascinating photographs of a globose springtail from Mount Bluff (above Camp Bernard), April 24.   (Still no butterflies, she writes!)  Since springtails are no longer considered to be insects (Class Insecta), and Collembola no longer an Order, I believe the current classification of Rosemary’s animal is something like this:

 

Phylum Arthropoda

Subphylum Hexapoda

Class Entognatha

Subclass Collembola (springtails)

Order Symphypleona (globose springtails)

Family  Dicyrtomidae

Genus Ptenothrix

Species Ptenothrix maculosa

 

 

 

Ptenothrix maculosa (Symphypleona: Dicyrtomidae)  Rosemary Jorna

Ptenothrix maculosa (Symphypleona: Dicyrtomidae)  Rosemary Jorna

Ptenothrix maculosa (Symphypleona: Dicyrtomidae)  Rosemary Jorna

Jochen Moehr has recently moved to a new part of Metchosin – near Lindholm Road – and it appears to be an exciting place for moths.  He has sent a big bunch of photographs taken on the stucco today.  Jeremy Tatum writes:  I’m posting now the few that I have been able to identify today.  Others will be posted as we manage to identify them.

 

The first is another one in the Egira rubrica/perlubens puzzle – except that now that we have sorted that puzzle out, I am sure that Jochen’s moth is a classic no-questions Egira rubrica.  Viewers may find it interesting to compare it with the images of the two species on the April 24 posting.

 

Egira rubrica (Lep.: Noctuidae) Jochen Moehr
   The moth below may be Hydriomena californiata, though Libby Avis warns that April is a bit early for this species, and that some of the Hydriomena (highflyers) are really tricky, so it could be another species.

 

Hydriomena sp. (maybe californiata) (Lep.: Geometridae) Jochen Moehr


Feralia comstocki (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Jochen Moehr

Behrensia conchiformis (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Jochen Moehr

 

April 24

2017 April 24

 

   Jeremy Tatum writes:  We have been having some fun with Egira perlubens/rubrica!   I had not realized how similar these moths can be until Bill Katz sent us the first of the two photographs below, of a moth at Mattick’s farm, unsure as to whether it was perlubens or rubrica.  I wasn’t sure, either, so I sent the photo to Libby Avis.  As it happens, Libby had coincidentally just been spending some time on how to distinguish between these two species herself, and she remarked: “It is comforting to know I’m not the only one with this problem”.

 

Libby spent a while pondering over Bill’s moth, and gave her best analysis and opinion, and I sent an email thanking her.  Less than a minute after I had sent my thank you note, my computer sounded a little “ping” to tell me of an incoming message.  It was Steven Roias,  who was totally unaware of Bill’s moth and of the correspondence between Libby and me, and he sent a photo (the second of the two below), also uncertain whether it was perlubens or rubrica. Again, I asked Libby!

 

The net result is that we now believe that both of the moths are Egira perlubens.

 

Egira perlubens (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Bill Katz

Egira perlubens (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Steven Roias

 

Here for the record are some of Libby’s comments.

 

On Bill’s photo:

The orbicular spot is a large, white, horizontal oval. In all the photos of E. rubrica that I’ve seen, the orbicular spot is much narrower, sometimes more like a bar than an oval, and always slanted down at an angle – not horizontal.  Also rubrica has a dark basal dash, sometimes quite faint, but always there. The photo you sent is a bit blurry, but I don’t see a basal dash. The edges of the tegulae are dark (which is the case in both species), but I don’t see a dash on the wing itself.

 

On Steven’s photo:

The orbicular spot is at a bit of slant, but it’s still big and no sign of a basal dash.

 

 

Jeremy writes:  The orbicular spot that Libby is referring to is the conspicuous whitish spot near the middle of the leading edge of the forewing – not the kidney-shaped spot beneath it.  Here are two of Libby’s archival photographs of perlubens:

 

Egira perlubens Libby Avis

Egira perlubens Libby Avis

   Now look at two archival photographs of rubrica from the Invert Alert site.  I think you’ll see what we mean by the shape of the orbicular spot.

 

Egira rubrica  Jeremy Gatten

Egira rubrica Rebecca Reader-Lee

   Nathan Fisk wrote, on April 22, No butterflies today.  Saw this bee warming itself after the showers at Fort Rodd.   Thanks to Annie Pang and Linc Best for confirming it as a male Andrena sp.  Annie comments:  Andrena is one of the few early spring bees and does not mind cooler temperatures.

 

Andrena sp. (Hym.: Andrenidae)   Nathan Fisk

 

April 23

2017 April 23

Happy Saint George’s Day, everyone!

 

Rosemary Jorna reports her first butterfly of the year – a Mourning Cloak on the Bugaboo Main past Port Renfrew, April 21.  This is the first report of this species this year received by Invert Alert.  She sends a photograph of a snail from the Walbran Valley.  Can someone identify, please?  (jtatum at uvic dot ca). She remarks that snails can retreat into their shells very fast for slow-moving animals – an observation that will be appreciated by anyone who has tried to photograph a snail!  [Jeremy Tatum writes:  I have often noticed, too, the astonishing speed at which slow-moving people can get in the way while one is shopping in the supermarket!]

 

Snail for identification, someone?    Rosemary Jorna

 

Bill Katz sends photographs of a micro moth and a caterpillar from Sooke.

 

Agonopterix oregonensis (Lep.: Depressariidae)  Bill Katz

Large Yellow Underwing Noctua pronuba (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Bill Katz