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.

July 27

2017 July 27

 

   Ren Ferguson sends some photographs taken on Pender Island on July 4 in brackish marsh habitat.  We get very few aquatic animals on this site (challenge for photographers – please note!) so we welcome Ren’s photograph of a long waterscorpion Ranatra sp.  I don’t know if we’ll be able to go below genus level.   Dr Heather Proctor writes, of the red dots:

The red blobs are water mites, and it’s 90% likely that they are Hydrachna (Hydrachnidae), which are the most common water mites parasitic on Hemiptera. But without a closer view I can’t be absolutely certain.
 

Long waterscorpion Ranatra sp.: (Hem.: Nepidae) Ren Ferguson

Red-veined Meadowhawk Sympetrum madidum (Odo.: Libellulidae) Ren Ferguson

Larva of giant sawfly Trichiosoma triangulum (Hym.: Cimbicidae) Ren Ferguson

 

Thomas Barbin sends a varied collection of insect close-ups.  The first one from Pender Island, June 10:

 

Greater Night-stalking Tiger Beetle Omus dejeani (Col.:  Carabidae – Cicindelinae)

Thomas Barbin

   We have seen before on this site photographs of crab spiders overcoming much larger bees and wasps.  This one is another spectacular example.  Photographed in the Highlands District, June 21.  The bee is Bombus sp. (mixtus, flavifrons and ternarius all look like reasonable fits) and the spider is Mecaphesa sp.

 

Bumblebee Bombus sp. (Hym.: Apidae)

Crab spider Mecaphesa sp.(Ara.: Thomisidae)

Thomas Barbin

 

 

 

A spider found in the Highlands District, June 21:

 

Phrurotimpus borealis (Ara.: Phrurolithidae) Thomas Barbin

 

An unusual beetle from Goldstream Campground, July 1:

 

Phellopsis porcata (Col.: Zopheridae)  Thomas Barbin

   A bug from Goldstream Park, July 5:

 

Two-spotted Grass Bug Stenotus binotatus (Hem.: Miridae)  Thomas Barbin

   A sharp-tailed leafcutter bee from Island View Beach, July 7:

 

Coelioxys sp. (Hym.: Megachilidae)  Thomas Barbin

   A thread-tailed wasp, also from Island View Beach, July 7:

 

Prionyx parkeri (Hym.: Sphecidae)  Thomas Barbin

   A cuckoo wasp, Island View Beach – evidently a good place for interesting bees and wasps – July 13:

 

Probably Chrysis sp. (Hym.: Chrysididae)  Thomas Barbin

  A sand wasp from – you  guessed it – Island View Beach, July 13:

 

Sand wasp Bembix sp. (Hym.: Crabronidae)  Thomas Barbin

   A strikingly-coloured jumping spider, Island View Beach, July 13:

Habronattus americanus (Ara.: Salticidae)  Thomas Barbin

   Lastly, two photographs of a longhorn beetle from Goldstream Campground, July 26.  Thanks to Scott Gilmore for the identification.

 

Strophiona laeta (Col.: Cerambycidae)  Thomas Barbin

Strophiona laeta (Col.: Cerambycidae)  Thomas Barbin

   Aziza Cooper sends a photograph of a teneral damselfly from Martindale Road, July 23.  Aziza writes that there were 45 Cabbage Whites over the cabbage field there.  Rob Cannings writes:  Yes, this is a teneral… (an individual, soon after moulting/emergence, whose cuticle is almost colourless and still unhardened). This is a male Tule Bluet Enallagma carunculatum. In this species, the superior appendages (cerci) are distinctive and are visible in this photo The middle abdominal appendages have much black dorsally, more than the other common local species have.

 

Tule Bluet Enallagma carunculatum (Odo.: Coenagrionidae)  Aziza Cooper

 

July 26 morning

2017 July 26 morning

 

   Gordon Hart writes:

 

The July count tallied 12 species, one fewer than 2016. This year, there were no Satyr Commas or Mourning Cloaks, but we added one Ringlet (Large Heath). Total numbers were up by about one third, from 667 to 1046 individuals. Cabbage Whites were the most numerous with 570 (2016: 431), and Western Tiger Swallowtails were next with 140 (2016: 47). Woodland Skippers started to appear near the end of the count period and only nine were counted (2016: 45). More Pine Whites were seen this year than last (2017:72, 2016:52), mainly due to large numbers seen in Colwood by Jeff Gaskin.

Thanks to everyone who submitted counts.

-Gordon Hart

     12 species      13 species
Jul-2017 Jul-2016     Difference
AniseSwallowtail 1 3 -2
Western Brown Elfin 0
CabbageButterfly 570 431 139
CaliforniaTortoiseshell
CedarHairstreak
Vancouver Island Ringlet (Large Heath) 1 1
European (Essex) Skipper 40 11 29
GreenComma
Grey Hairstreak 2 -2
Lorquin’s Admiral 194 54 140
Milbert’s Tortoiseshell
MossElfin
MourningCloak 2 -2
PaintedLady 12 6 6
PaleSwallowtail 4 7 -3
Pine White 72 52 20
PropertiusDuskywing
Purplish Copper
RedAdmiral 2 6 -4
SaraOrangeTip
SatyrComma 1 -1
Silvery Blue
SpringAzure
TwoBanded Grizzled (Checkered) Skipper
West Coast Lady 1 1
WesternPineElfin
Western Sulphur
WesternTigerSwallowtail 140 47 93
Woodland Skipper 9 45 -36
totals 1046 667 379
Number of observers 12 15
Number of reports 27 42
Number of locations covered 34 44

 

 

Peter Boon writes:

 

Here’s a Chalk-fronted Corporal that I photographed at Spider Lake yesterday.  There were several of these about alongside Eight-spotted skimmers, Blue-eyed Darners and Northern Bluets.  Spider Lake is near Horne Lake north of Qualicum Beach close to Highway 19.

 

Chalk-fronted Corporal Ladona julia (Odo.: Libellulidae)  Peter Boon

 

Ken Vaughan sends a nice selection of photographs from the last couple of weeks.

First, two moths from the Highlands District.

 

 Neoalcis californiaria (Lep.: Geometridae)  Ken Vaughan

Dysstroma citrata (Lep.: Geometridae)  Ken Vaughan

   Next, two dragonflies and a butterfly from the Beaver Lake Ponds.

 

American Emerald Cordulia shurtleffii (Odo.: Corduliidae) Ken Vaughan

Eight-spotted Skimmer Libellula forensis (Odo.: Libellulidae) Ken Vaughan

Painted Lady Vanessa cardui (Lep.: Nymphalidae)  Ken Vaughan

   And three moths from Ken’s Oak Bay apartment.

 

Apamea amputatrix (Lep.: Noctuidae) Ken Vaughan

Noctua pronuba (Lep.: Noctuidae) Ken Vaughan

Idaea dimidiata (Lep.: Geometridae)  Ken Vaughan

   Francie Morgan writes that she and Kathleen Burton found this interesting Clearwing moth Synanthedon bibionipennis on the windowsill at Swan Lake Nature Sanctuary.

 

 Synanthedon bibionipennis (Lep.: Sesiidae)  Kathleen Burton

 

July 24

2017 July 24

 

   Return to back-to-business provides an opportunity for a brief reminder of the optimum way of submitting observations to Invertebrate Alert.  Send observations to jtatum at uvic dot ca   We welcome, of course, reports just of sightings and they don’t have to be accompanied with photographs.  If you send a photograph or photographs, please send them in .jpg format as an attachment. It takes me much longer to process if you send them some other way. Remember to say where you saw the animal (not “my backyard” – I don’t know where that is) and when (date with month written in letters!).  Unless I have a query, I don’t generally respond – your “reward” and thank you are when the item gets posted!  There may sometimes be a delay, while we are trying to identify an obscure insect, though if the delay is over a week you might check with me in case I have overlooked the record (which occasionally happens).  If you know the identification of the insect, please say so – so that I don’t have to spend time figuring it out myself!  If you don’t know, we’ll do our best – that may take a few days.   Jeremy Tatum

 

  Bryan Gates sends a photograph of a European Paper Wasp. He writes that for the past four years the species has been nesting in a hollow aluminium railing at his house in Black Creek.

 

European Paper Wasp Polistes dominula (Hym.: Vespidae)  Bryan Gates

 

 

   Val George sends photographs of two moths from his Oak Bay house, July 21.  He also sends a photograph of a Great Arctic butterfly from Mount Washington, seen on the VNHS Botany trip to Mount Washington, July 23, thus again dashing my (Jeremy) theory that this species occurs only in even-numbered years!

 


Choristoneura rosaceana (Lep.: Tortricidae)  Val George

 


Clemensia albata (Lep.: Erebidae – Arctiinae – Lithosiini)  Val George

 

Great Arctic Oeneis nevadensis (Lep.: Nymphalidae – Satyrinae)  Val George

 

 

   Jochen Moehr sends a picture of a crane fly from his house in Metchosin, July 9.  Alas –  in spite of the efforts of the best brains in Victoria, the exact species identity of this well-marked insect still eludes us.

 

Crane fly (Dip.: Tipulidae)  Jochen Moehr

 

 

   New VNHS member Michael Croteau photographed a syrphid fly on Mount Work on June 3.  We are grateful to Jeff Skevington and Andrew Young for the identification as a male Melanostoma sp.  Dr Skevington advises us that Melanostoma  is probably a complex of species, but at present they are all lumped as M. mellinum.

 

Melanostoma mellinum (Dip.: Syrphidae)  Michael Croteau

July 23

2017 July 23

 

  Jeremy Tatum writes:  Back from holidays, so Invertebrate Alert is back in business – slowly as I recover from jet lag.   I saw lots of butterflies on the Sussex South Downs, largely thanks to Sussex butterfly enthusiast David Harris.  One of the most memorable was a Chalkhill Blue nectaring on a Round-headed Rampion – both species iconic symbols of the Sussex South Downs.  Also, not one, but two sightings of the absolutely enormous syrphid fly Volucella zonaria.

 

   Anyway, some unfinished business first. The moth/caddisfly with the very long antennae photographed by Ken Vaughan (see July 5 posting) has been identified by Claudia Copley and Libby Avis as a caddisfly (as originally suggested by Ken) of the family Leptoceridae, possibly, suggested by Libby, of the genus Oecetis.

 

  More unfinished business.  Nick Doe found several of these small moths on Gabriola Island in June 27.  He has since identified them as Protodeltote albidula

 


Protodeltote albidula (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Nick Doe

 

 

   Val George sends a photograph of Coryphista meadii from his Oak Bay garden, July 16. The caterpillar feeds on Mahonia and Berberis.

 

Coryphista meadii (Lep.: Geometridae)  Val George.

 

 

   Jeff Gaskin writes:  I have been doing quite a bit of looking for butterflies since it is butterfly count week and here are a few of my findings.

July 15, was the date of my first Pine White which was from the highway or Sooke Road near the View Royal Casino

July 19,  a Pale Tiger Swallowtail in Finnerty Gardens at UVic.

July 18,  6 Pine Whites near the View Royal Casino as seen from the highway or Sooke Road,  and a Painted Lady at Tower Point.

July 17, a Large Heath or “Ringlet”  in Layritz Park south of Markham Road and a Woodland Skipper on nearby Broadcast Hill.

July 17, on Mount Tolmie at 5 p.m. 1 West Coast Lady, 2 Red Admirals, and 5 Painted Ladies all near the concrete reservoir.

 

 

   Annie Pang sends a photograph of a Western Tiger Swallowtail from Gorge Park, July 16.

 

Western Tiger Swallowtail Papilio rutulus (Lep.: Papilionidae)  Annie Pang

   We have a few photos in the queue awaiting identification.

July 13

2017 July 13​

 

FROM Gordon Hart

Hello Butterfly Counters,

The July count starts Saturday July 15, ending on Sunday July 23. You can submit a count anytime over this period, and you can do more than one count, just use a separate form for each count. In the case of repeat counts, or more than one person counting an area, I will take the highest count for each species.
Please use the form at https://www.vicnhs.bc.ca/?p=33 on the Victoria Natural History Society website .
The count area is the same as the Christmas Bird Count circle. For butterfly identification there are numerous internet sites, but most or all Victoria species are listed on E-Fauna. If you select by photographer, all the photos under James Miskelly’s name are of Victoria species. Here is the link: http://linnet.geog.ubc.ca/efauna/photoGallery/Gallery.aspx?gr=showall&pid=175&photographer=miskelly,%20james&specrep=0
If you would like a suggestion for an area to count, please send me an email. 

In addition to the counts, a monthly butterfly walk is held on the first Sunday of each month – the next walk will be on August 6. We start at the summit of Mount Tolmie at 1pm, and decide where to go from there. I will send out another reminder the week before. 

Thank-you for submitting your sightings and good luck on your count. Most of our spring species are gone now, but there are more summer species to come.