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.

April 15

2018 April 15

 

   Jeremy Tatum writes:   There are lots of dark-coloured flies that one encounters on the rotting seaweed on the seashore. I managed to photograph one of them on Mount Douglas Beach yesterday afternoon.  I think it is probably a coelopid, but there are flies in other families (e.g. Scathophagidae, Muscidae) that have members that occur on rotting seaweed.  It’s certainly not a muscid, so for the time being I’m labelling it as a probable coelopid.

 

Fly (Dip.: probably Coelopidae)   Jeremy Tatum

 

 

   I see from the bcvibirds website that Robin Robinson saw a Moss’s Elfin on Skirt Mountain on April 14.

April 13

2018 April 13

 

   Thomas Barbin writes:  Here are a couple of photographs of a Golden Buprestid Buprestis aurulenta that I found on April 9, 2018, at Goldstream Provincial Park.

 

Golden Buprestid Buprestis aurulenta (Col.: Buprestidae) Thomas Barbin

 

Golden Buprestid Buprestis aurulenta (Col.: Buprestidae) Thomas Barbin

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

April 12 evening

2108 April 12 evening

  

 More of Jochen’s moths from Metchosin.

 


Hydriomena manzanita (Lep.: Geometridae)    Jochen Moehr

 


Egira crucialis (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Jochen Moehr

 


Egira simplex (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Jochen Moehr

 


Cussusa indiscreta (Lep.: Erebidae)  Jochen Moehr

 


Feralia deceptiva  (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Jochen Moehr

 


Orthosia praeses (Lep.: Noctuidae)

 


Eupithecia ravocostaliata/nevadata (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jocjen Moehr

 


Cladaria limitaria (Lep.: Geometridae_  Jochen Moehr

 


Egira hiemalis (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Jochen Moehr


Egira perlubens (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Jochen Moehr

 

 

 

 

April 12 morning

2018 April 12 morning

 

   Continuing with Jochen Moehr’s remarkable series of moths from Metchosin in the last few nights.   We start with three pugs.

 

Eupithecia graefii (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Moehr

Eupithecia ravocostaliata/nevadata (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Moehr

Eupithecia gilvipennata (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Moehr

Two more geometrids:

 

Venusia obsoleta/pearsalli (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Moehr

Venusia obsoleta/pearsalli (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Moehr

…and two noctuids:

 

Behrensia conchiformis (Lep: Noctuidae) Jochen Moehr

Egira rubrica (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Jochen Moehr

 

More this evening in this series – and thanks to Libby Avis for help with identifications.

 

April 11

2018 April 11

 

   Jochen Moehr continues to get exciting moths in Metchosin.  Here are a few – there’ll be more to come in the next posting!   Thanks to Libby Avis for help with the identifications.

 

 

Orthosia praeses (Lep.: Noctuidae) Jochen Moehr

Orthosia praeses (Lep.: Noctuidae) Jochen Moehr

Orthosia praeses (Lep.: Noctuidae) Jochen Moehr

Orthosia hibisci (Lep.: Noctuidae) Jochen Moehr

Orthosia hibisci (Lep.: Noctuidae)Jochen Moehr

Orthosia hibisci (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Jochen Moehr

Orthosia hibisci (Lep.: Noctuidae) Jochen Moehr

   Jeremy Tatum writes:  I’m envious – all I could find at the well-lit rear door of my Saanich apartment building this morning was a weevil.

 

Otiorhynchus singularis (Col.: Curculionidae)   Jeremy Tatum

 

Although this site is for terrestrial invertebrates, I couldn’t resist this next one – a marine mite.  I didn’t know there were such things.  It was photographed by John MacFarlane.  Dr Heather Proctor writes:  This is a mesostigmatan.  There are no completely subaquatic mesostigs, so this was probably from the intertidal zone, or possibly got washed into deeper water.  Unfortunately it is a nymph, so I can’t tell what Family it belongs to.

 

Jeremy Tatum writes: Until I have time to work on going through all the mites on this site, for the present I am listing, in the Index, all mites and ticks under the Order Acari.  However, in modern classifications, Acari is a Subclass (or at least something higher than Order).  Parasitiformes might be regarded as an Order within the Acari, and the Mesostigmata as a Suborder within Parasitiformes.

 

Nymphal marine mite (Acari – Parasitiformes – Mesostigmata)

John MacFarlane

   Viewers who are interested in trying their hand at amateur photomicrography, or indeed more experienced photomicrographers, may be interested in a site being designed by Mr MacFarlane for that purpose.  See the Invert Alert entry for March 29, or go to micronaturalist.ca or write to Mr MacFarlane at:   microscope at shaw dot ca    for more details.  It sounds interesting.