{"id":2807,"date":"2016-07-01T18:07:49","date_gmt":"2016-07-02T02:07:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/?p=2807"},"modified":"2016-07-13T20:59:30","modified_gmt":"2016-07-14T03:59:30","slug":"july-1-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/?p=2807","title":{"rendered":"July 1"},"content":{"rendered":"
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2016 July 1<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>Monthly Butterfly Walk.<\/strong>\u00a0 <\/strong> All are welcome.\u00a0 We meet this Sunday, July 3, at 10:00 a.m.<\/strong>\u00a0 <\/strong>(note the change in time), at the top of Mount Tolmie.\u00a0 We usually discuss where we will go when we meet.\u00a0 It is very weather-dependent, of course, and if the weather is bad it may have to be cancelled.\u00a0 But if the weather is good, one possibility is Cowichan Station, to see if we can see the Margined White.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>Jeremy Tatum writes:\u00a0 A Satyr Comma <\/strong>ecloded (emerged) this morning from the chrysalis shown on June 21.\u00a0 You can see the empty chrysalis case to the left of the butterfly.\u00a0 This is a female.\u00a0 The underside of the male has a much more \u201cscribbly\u201d pattern, and a thicker, more \u201cear-shaped\u201d white mark.\u00a0 I released the butterfly this morning on bramble blossom on Lochside Drive north of Blenkinsop Lake.\u00a0 It is the first adult Satyr Comma that I have seen this year.<\/p>\n

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\"\"Satyr Comma Polygonia satyrus <\/em>(Lep.: Nymphalidae)\u00a0 Jeremy Tatum<\/div>\n

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The interesting photograph below was taken by Andrew Simon.\u00a0 The aphids are being \u201cfarmed\u201d by the ants, who enjoy the sweet \u201choney dew\u201d that the aphids exude. The aphids are said to obtain some advantage from the ants, which protect them from predators.\u00a0 Well, there is a predator at the bottom of the photograph.\u00a0 The pale slug-like creature there is the maggot of a hoverfly (Syrphidae), and these syrphid larvae are among the most voracious predators of aphids. Do you think the ant that is partially straddling the maggot is doing its job?<\/p>\n

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We have four organisms to identify in the photograph.\u00a0 I think the botanists may agree that the thistle is the Canada Thistle Cirsium canadensis, <\/em>also known as Cirsium arvense<\/em>.\u00a0 In spite of its English and scientific names, I believe it is a European invader, and not a native species.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know if we can find anyone to identify the ants or the aphids for us.\u00a0 The fly larva would seem to be even more of a challenge, but Dr Jeff Skevington exceeded\u00a0my expectations\u00a0and has gone down to Subfamily level – it\u2019s in the Subfamily Syrphinae.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0Ants, aphids, and a syrphine maggot<\/p>\n

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Ren Ferguson writes, from Salt Spring Island:\u00a0 Attached is a photo of what I think would be a species of fly? Anyway, I have never seen this critter before and was hoping for some help in identifying it.\u00a0 It landed on the railing of our deck here on Salt Spring Island on June 29. That is a large body percentage given over to compound eyes!<\/p>\n

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Jeremy Tatum responds:\u00a0 I am absolutely and genuinely terrified of tabanid flies, and I experienced that feeling of terror as soon as I saw the photograph, from which I deduce that it is a tabanid fly.\u00a0 Thanks to Claudia Copley for idenifying it as Tabanus punctifer<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n

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\"\"Western Horse Fly\u00a0Tabanus punctifer<\/em> \u00a0 (Dip.: Tabanidae)\u00a0 Ren Ferguson<\/div>\n

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2016 July 1 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 Monthly Butterfly Walk.\u00a0 All are welcome.\u00a0 We meet this Sunday, July 3, at 10:00 a.m.\u00a0 (note the change in time), at the top of Mount Tolmie.\u00a0 We usually discuss where we will go when we meet.\u00a0 It is very weather-dependent, of course, and if the weather is bad it may […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-invertebrate-alert"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2807"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2807\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2906,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2807\/revisions\/2906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}