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.

2022 September 26

2022 September 26

   Ian Cooper writes (September 25):   I have just returned from another photo shoot along the Galloping Goose trail between Harriet Road and Tillicum Road.   There were a few of these odd-looking weevils feeding on a broad leafy plant that looked a bit like giant rhubarb growing amidst the cattails.

  We thank Scott Gilmore for identifying it as Lixus (probably rubellus).

 

Lixus (probably rubellus) (Col.: Curculionidae)  Ian Cooper

2022 September 25 morning

2022 September 25 morning

    Jochen Möhr sends, from Metchosin, an upperside and an underside view of a moth kindly identified for us by Libby Avis as Antepirrhoe semiatrata, the Black-banded Carpet moth  (formerly Eustroma semiatrata).

Antepirrhoe semiatrata (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Möhr

 

Antepirrhoe semiatrata (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Möhr

2022 September 24 evening

2022 September 24 evening

    John McClarnon sends photographs from Hazlitt Creek, September 23.

Yellow Woolly Bear Spilosoma virginica (Lep.: Erebidae – Arctiinae)  John McClarnon

Araneus diadematus (Ara.: Araneidae)  John McClarnon

Araneus diadematus (Ara.: Araneidae)  John McClarnon

Probably Melanoplus sp. (Orth.: Acrididae)  John McClarnon

Horntail wasp Urocerus (probably flavicornis)  (Hym.: Siricidae) John McClornan

 

Ian Cooper sends a photograph of a red mite:

Red Mite (Acari:  Tetranychidae)  Ian Cooper

 

2022 September 24 morning

2022 September 24 morning

    Cheryl Hoyle sends a photograph of a Large Yellow Underwing moth from View Royal, September 23.

 

Large Yellow Underwing Noctua pronuba (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Cheryl Hoyle

2022 September 23 evening

2022 September 23 evening

    Gordon Hart photographed this very cryptically-patterned grasshopper on Christmas Hill on September 21.  Thanks to Darren and Claudia Copley for identifying it as Trimerotropis sp., and James Miskelly for narrowing it down to Trimerotropis fontana.

 

Crackling Forest Grasshopper Trimerotropis fontana (Orth.: Acrididae)  Gordon Hart