2024 August 26 morning

No Invertebrate Alert was issued on August 25.

Marie O’Shaughnessy shows another photograph – this time a lateral view – of the grasshopper shown on August 24.  This enabled James Miskelly to identify it with certainty.   James writes:  This confirms that it’s Melanoplus sanguinipes.  If Marie or the readers are interested in identification notes, this is the only Melanoplus on Vancouver Island that has diagonal stripes on the outer face of the hind femurs.

Melanoplus sanguinipes  (Orth.: Acrididae)  Marie O’Shaughnessy

Marie writes that the butterflies at McIntyre Reservoir on the afternoon of August 25 were.

1 Painted Lady
4 Cabbage Whites
10 Woodland Skippers 

Painted Lady Vanessa cardui  (Lep.: Nymphalidae)  Marie O’Shaughnessy

Painted Lady Vanessa cardui  (Lep.: Nymphalidae)  Marie O’Shaughnessy

Painted Lady Vanessa cardui  (Lep.: Nymphalidae)  Marie O’Shaughnessy

Woodland Skipper Ochlodes sylvanoides  (Lep.: Hesperiidae)  Marie O’Shaughnessy

Gordon Hart writes:  Here at home in the Highlands, on Sunday August 25 we saw a nice Black Saddlebags. It perched for a minute, so I was able to photograph it. It stayed a while hunting with a couple of Paddle-tailed Darners before disappearing. The only butterflies today were a Cabbage White and at least two Woodland Skippers.

Black Saddlebags Tramea lacerata  (Odo.: Libellulidae)  Gordon Hart

2024 August 24

   No Invertebrate Alert was issued on August 23.

Marie O’Shaughnessy sends these five photographs from a trip up to Parksville /Nanaimo area Aug 22, 2024

Western Forktail Ischnura perparva  (Odo.: Coenagrionidae)  Marie O’Shaughnessy

Spotted Spreadwing  Lestes congener  (Odo.: Lestidae)  Marie O’Shaughnessy

Paddle-tailed Darner Aeshna palmata  (Odo.: Aeshnidae)   Marie O’Shaughnessy

We thank James Miskelly, who writes, of the following two photographs:

The katydid is Conocephalus fasciatus and the grasshopper is a bit ambiguous. I think it’s Melanoplus sanguinipes but without a side view of the hind femora I can’t rule out M. femurrubrum. On Vancouver Island the latter species is only found in salt marsh habitat.

Conocephalus fasciatus  (Odo.: Tettigoniidae)  Marie O’Shaughnessy

Melanoplus sanguinipes  (Odo.: Acrididae) Marie O’Shaughnessy

       But see further on the identification of this grasshopper on the August 26 posting.

2024 August 22 morning

   No Invertebrate Alert was issued on August 21.

Aziza Cooper sends a photograph of a Robin’s Pincushion, or Bedeguar, from Pedder Bay, August 20. This is a gall formed on a wild rose (usually on a nonnative species rather than on a Nootka Rose) by the larva of the gall wasp Diplolepis rosae.

Robin’s Pincushion Diplolepis rosae (Hym.: Cynipidae)  Aziza Cooper

Jeremy Tatum shows a caterpillar found on Gumweed at Esquimalt Lagoon, August 21.

Cucullia montanae  (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Jeremy Tatum

2024 August 20 morning

No Invertebrate Alert was issued on August 19.

But we start off today with two nice moths seen and photographed yesterday by Val George, Catocala relicta on the Blenkinsop Trail near the lake,  Cyclophora dataria on the wall of his Oak Bay house.

Catocala relicta  (Lep.: Erebidae – Erebinae)  Val George

Cyclophora dataria  (Lep.: Geometridae)  Val George

2024 August 18

Val George writes:  This Dichagyris variabilis moth was at the Nanaimo River Road yesterday, August 17. The only butterflies I saw were two Common Woodnymphs and about half a dozen Woodland Skippers.

Dichagyris variabilis  (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Val George

Marie O’Shaughnessy visited Outerbridge Park on the morning of August 18, where she saw

Butterflies

  4 Cabbage Whites
1 Lorquin’s Admiral
11 Woodland Skippers

Dragonflies

3  Striped Meadowhawks
4 Paddle-tailed Darners
1 Black Saddlebags
3 pairs of damselflies (bluets?)  in copula

She sent photographs of Striped Meadowhawks:

Striped Meadowhawk  Sympetrum pallipes  (Odo.: Libellulidae)  Marie O’Shaughnessy

 Striped Meadowhawk  Sympetrum pallipes  (Odo.: Libellulidae)  Marie O’Shaughnessy