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.

November 15

2016 November 15

 

   Jeremy Tatum writes:   The Cabbage White  caterpillar shown on November 12 pupated on November 14.  The chrysalis is shown below.  It is quite a different colour from the one shown on November 9.

 Cabbage White Pieris rapae (Lep.: Pieridae)  Jeremy Tatum

November 14

2016 November 14

 

   Morgan Davies sends a picture of a beetle that was found during the course of ecological restoration of Ammophila grass on Sidney Island on November 6.  Thanks to Scott Gilmore for the identification.

 

Northern Carrion Beetle Thanatophilus lapponicus (Col.: Silphidae) Morgan Davies

November 12

2016 November 12

 

   Jeremy Tatum writes:  It seems that the caterpillar season isn’t quite over yet.  Yesterday, November 11, I found another Cabbage White caterpillar on Charlock near the MacIntyre reservoir, Island View Road.

 

Cabbage White Pieris rapae (Lep.: Pieridae)  Jeremy Tatum

   And there are interesting moths around, too.  Rebecca Reader-Lee writes:  Here is a moth from last night (November 11) in the North Highlands.

 

Autumnal Moth  Epirrita autumnata (Lep.: Geometridae)  Rebecca Reader-Lee

 

November 10

2016 November 10

 

   Annie Pang sends a picture of a soldier fly from Gorge Park, November 8.  Thanks to Rob Cannings for identifying it as Exaireta spinigera.  This is an Australian species, and the first published record of its occurrence in North America was in a 2006 paper by J.E Swann, R.D. Kenner, Rob Cannings and Claudia Copley (J. Ent. Soc. BC, 103, December 2006).  The paper cited about eight hitherto unidentified specimens all from the Victoria or Vancouver areas, dating from 2002. There had been an unpublished sighting of this species in a greenhouse in California in 1985.  This is a large soldier fly. Annie estimated its length from 10 to 12 mm.  Other sources put it as high as 14 mm.  Congratulations to Annie for this interesting record.

 


Exaireta spinigera (Dip.:  Stratiomyidae)   Annie Pang

 

 

   Jeremy Tatum sends a photograph of a more familiar insect, Autographa californica, from the wall of the Elliott Building at UVic this morning.

 Autographa californica (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Jeremy Tatum

 

 

November 9

2016 November 9

 

   Jeremy Tatum writes:  My computer is “up” again, so Invert Alert is back in business.  The Cabbage White caterpillar shown on November 4 pupated yesterday.  The chrysalis is shown below.

 

Cabbage White Pieris rapae (Lep.: Pieridae)  Jeremy Tatum

 Cabbage White Pieris rapae ( Lep.: Pieridae) Jeremy Tatum

 

 

A bunch of correspondence between several entomologists appeared on my screen this morning, speculating about the possible expansion of a spreadwing damselfly Archilestes californicus and the Viceroy butterfly into British Columbia (possibly, one of them suggested, as a result of the Trump effect).  Observers are asked, therefore, to keep a look-out for these species next summer.  Viceroys are supposed to be Monarch mimics, and indeed they do a remarkably good job of it.  But when I saw one in Ontario once, there was no doubt what it was – it was immediately recognizable as a Viceroy, and similar in “jizz” to our Lorquin’s Admiral.

 

Libby Avis writes: Photo of a surprisingly fresh-looking Mourning Cloak yesterday, Nov. 6th at the Little Qualicum, presumably looking for a spot to hibernate. Not much else around, though – too wet!

 

Mourning Cloak Nymphalis antiopa (Lep.: Nymphalidae)  Libby Avis

 

Val George writes: This small (c. 13mm shell diameter) snail was in my garden in Oak Bay yesterday, Nov 8  –  not one I’ve seen there before.  I know nothing (actually, less than nothing if that’s possible) about snails, but I thought I might as well take a shot at identifying it; my best guess is Oxychilus draparnaudi.  Jeremy Tatum responds:  Well, I don’t know much about them, either, but I don’t think there’s much doubt about this one!  If any malacologist out there thinks differently, let us know!

 

Dark-bodied Glass-snail Oxychilus draparnaudi (Pul.: Daubebariidae)  Val George

 

Jeremy Tatum writes:  This large spider was on the wall of the Elliott building at UVic this morning (November 9).  21 mm from front of head to tip of abdomen.  Thank you, Robb Bennett, for identifying it for us as a female Callobius severus.  We have had this spider on Invert Alert once before – in 2011, when Ann Nightingale found one in her shoe just as she was about to put it on.

 

 

Callobius severus  (Ara.: Amaurobiidae)  Jeremy Tatum