{"id":3486,"date":"2016-11-24T16:18:09","date_gmt":"2016-11-25T00:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/?p=3486"},"modified":"2016-11-24T16:19:59","modified_gmt":"2016-11-25T00:19:59","slug":"november-24","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/?p=3486","title":{"rendered":"November 24"},"content":{"rendered":"
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2016 November 24<\/strong><\/p>\n

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   <\/strong>Jeremy Tatum writes:  <\/strong>The first European Winter Moth to appear on this site this year was on October 20, a rather early date, but they have since been abundant, as usual, in November.  Now Annie Pang sends us a puzzler from her back porch in the Gorge area yesterday, November 23.   Winter moths in Victoria are usually the European Winter Moth O. brumata<\/em>, and we usually have to go out into the countryside (e.g. Goldstream Park) to see the native Bruce’s Winter Moth (“Bruce’s Spanworm”) O. bruceata.<\/em>  Sometimes it is not difficult to tell the two species apart; at other times it is<\/em> difficult.<\/p>\n

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   Given the locality where Annie photographed her moth, it is probable that it is brumata<\/em>, and this opinion is shared by other “moth-ers” whom I have consulted.  Yet I believe (I’m a one-man minority so far!) that Annie’s moth shown below may be bruceata<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I base this on the conspicuous dark H or X in the middle of the forewing, which I believe to be diagnostic.  However, since we are not all in agreement on this, I shall label it bruceata\/brumata<\/em>.  Opinions (with reasons!) from viewers will be more than welcome, as will additional photographs of either species.<\/p>\n

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   One argument against my preference for bruceata <\/em>is as follows.  In the undoubted examples of bruceata <\/em>that I have seen, the cell between the two lower arms of the H is often darker than adjacent cells.  This is not so in Annie’s moth, which is therefore a point in favour of its being brumata.<\/em>  <\/em>Thus I may be said to be wavering.<\/p>\n

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Winter moth Operophtera bruceata\/brumata <\/em> (Lep.: Geometridae)  Annie Pang<\/p>\n

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2016 November 24      Jeremy Tatum writes:  The first European Winter Moth to appear on this site this year was on October 20, a rather early date, but they have since been abundant, as usual, in November.  Now Annie Pang sends us a puzzler from her back porch in the Gorge area yesterday, November […]<\/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-3486","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\/3486","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=3486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3486\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}