INVERTEBRATE ALERT
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 February 17

2022 February 17

 Butterfly!     Jules Thomson sends us the first butterfly sighting we have heard of this year – a Mourning Cloak.  On Sunday, February 13, around noon, under the powerlines on the north side of Francis/King Park.

2022 February 16

2022 February 16

    Jochen Möhr sends a photograph of a Hypena californica from his office window at his Metchosin home.

Hypena californica (Lep.: Erebidae – Hypeninae)  Jochen Möhr

2022 February 15

2022 February 15

    Jochen Möhr sends a photograph of another pug from his kitchen window in Metchosin.   It looks like probably a different individual from the one shown yesterday, although, like yesterday’s, it might be Eupithecia annulata  – or it might not!  Difficult to be sure with these small Eupithecias, of which there are many similar species.

Eupithecia sp. (Lep.: Geometridae)   Jochen Möhr

   Jeremy Tatum sends a photograph of an Orthosia praeses from UVic woods this morning.

Orthosia praeses (Lep.: Noctuidae) Jeremy Tatum

2022 February 14

2022 February 14

    Jochen Möhr sends a photograph of a pug from his kitchen window in Metchosin yesterday.  Jeremy Tatum writes:  With its prominent elongated discal spot, a zigzag pale subterminal line, a dashed line along the termen of both wings, and a chequered fringe, this could be

either    i)   Eupithecia annulata

or         ii)   not

Alas, these pugs can be too difficult for us ordinary mortals to identify with certainty, though annulata is at least a reasonable guess.

Eupithecia (perhaps annulata) (Lep.: Geometridae)   Jochen Möhr

2022 February 13

2022 February 13

    Jeremy Tatum writes that there was a Hydriomena nubilofasciata at the door of the Swan Lake Nature House this morning.  Too high up for a photograph.