2017 September 2 evening

   Scott Gilmore sends a picture of a soldier fly that he found in Upper Lantzville yesterday.  He writes:  It was identified as Exaireta spinigera by Katja Schulz on iNaturalist. It is an Australia native that has been in North American since 1985 and was first collected on this island in 2006. Some interesting reading on the species can be found here (Swann J.E., R.D. Kenner, R.A. Cannings, C.R. Copley (2006) Exaireta spinigera (Diptera: Stratiomyidae): the first published North American records of an Australian soldier fly. J. Entomol. Soc. Brit. Columbia 103: 71-72)

  This soldier fly was also featured on this site on 2016 November 10 – one was photographed on November 8 by Annie Pang in Gorge Park.

Exaireta spinigera (Dip.: Stratiomyidae)  Scott Gilmore

   Annie Pang sends photograph of two bees.  One was identified by Lincoln Best as Lasioglossum sp.   The other by Cory Sheffield as probably a male Bombus fervidus.

Lasioglossum sp. (Hym.:  Halictidae)  Annie Pang

Bombus fervidus (Hym.: Apidae)   Annie Pang 

   Lots more in the queue – to appear tomorrow.  Jeremy

2017 September 2

Reminder:  Butterfly Walk tomorrow, Mount Tolmie, 1:00 pm.  For details scroll down to September 1 morning.

   Jeremy Tatum writes:  Libby Avis commented yesterday that she is being swamped in Port Alberni – as we are here in the Victoria area – by Neoalcis californiaria.  I opened my rear door this morning, and the one below was sitting there right at eye level:

Neoalcis californiaria (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jeremy Tatum

   Several nice caterpillars reached the Invert Alert mailbox yesterday.   First a dagger photographed by Scott Gilmore on a alder trunk at Upper Lantzville.  Daggers comprise a large genus Acronicta of rather similar grey moths carrying a dagger mark on their forewings.  Although the moths are quite similar and difficult to distinguish, they have a remarkable array of very different and quite beautiful and spectacular caterpillars.

Acronicta impleta (Lep.: Noctuidae)   Scott Gilmore

   Libby Avis has a couple of nice ones from Port Alberni.  She found the first one, Euplexis similis on Maidenhead Fern.  The two white dots at the rear of the caterpillar are distinctive of the species. 

Euplexis benesimilis (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Libby Avis

   The next are two instars of  Schizura ipomoeae found on a plum tree.  The first is probably a penultimate instar.  The second is probably a final instar, and unfortunately it has a tachinid egg on the side of its second abdominal segment.

Schizura ipomoeae (Lep.: Notodontidae)  Libby Avis 

Schizura ipomoeae (Lep.: Notodontidae)  Libby Avis 

   Jeremy Tatum writes:  Well having received such an interesting set of caterpillar photographs, I thought I’d photograph my Zale caterpillar again, now that it is a little larger:

Zale sp. (Lep.: Erebidae – Erebinae)  Jeremy Tatum

   Invert Alert still has several photographs waiting in the queue – so, apologies to contributors for making you wait!  I’ll try and do a second posting later in the day.

2017 September 1 evening

   Jeremy Tatum writes:  August is gone, and every butterfly from now on counts!   I visited Martindale today, and there are still large numbers of Cabbage Whites there, but I also saw, in the Forbidden Field to the south of Martindale, two Orange Sulphurs.  [I watched them from the side of the road!]  There is a huge patch of Alfalfa in the Forbidden Field, especially near the L-reservoir, and I bet there are Orange Sulphurs there, perhaps even breeding.  But the Forbidden Field is the Forbidden Field.

  There was a worn but still strongly-flying Red Admiral just outside the entrance to the Mount Tolmie reservoir at 6:15 pm this evening.

  Here’s a photograph of a Lophocampa maculata caterpillar, from Goldstream Park.  We’ll be seeing lots of these in the next few weeks.

Lophocampa maculata (Lep.: Erebidae – Arctiinae)  Jeremy Tatum

   Lots more interesting stuff in the pipeline, but it is going to have to wait until tomorrow.  I may be able to do a morning posting.

2017 September 1, morning

From Gordon Hart:  Monthly Butterfly Walk

This is a reminder for the VNHS monthly butterfly walk this Sunday, September 3.  We will meet at Mount Tolmie at 1 p.m.. You can park at the main parking lot north of the summit, or in the lot by the reservoir where we will have an initial look for butterflies and then decide where to go from there.
Hope to see you Sunday!
-Gordon

Annie Pang echoes Jochen Moehr’s recent comments concerning the paucity of insects.   Annie’s concerns in particular are for bees.  She writes:  The folks I’m running into down at the Community Gardens and elsewhere are all remarking on the lack of bees this summer.  We do have “some” bees, but the troubling part is they are mostly just one species of bumblebee (Bombus vosnesenskii), and the non-indigenous Honey Bee (Apis mellifera), with only the very odd solitary bees, which appeared in remarkable numbers last summer.  A few of our local gardeners did see some in early spring which were the Blue Orchard bee (Osmia lignaria) and some Andrena species (Mining bees rather than Mason bees), and over the last few weeks I’ve seen a handful of Megachile (leaf-cutter bees), and 2….yep, count ’em….TWO….Anthidium bees.  Okay …so this may all be Chinese to most of you [more likely Latin and Greek – Jeremy Tatum], but what I’m saying here is that the native bee population is in serious trouble and there are just not that many Honey Bees to pick up the slack.

Annie continues: I have attached the best pictures of optimism I could find this summer in the shape of a wee butterfly that, during the last few weeks, has out-numbered our bees here!  The Woodland Skipper has been around in very good numbers and it is a good thing for pollination.  Although they do not carry the same amount of pollen by any means that a bee would, they do help with pollination by their very numbers.  And the sad lack of bees…..well, I’ve never seen so few.

Woodland Skipper Ochlodes sylvanoides (Lep.: Hesperiidae)  Annie Pang

Woodland Skipper Ochlodes sylvanoides (Lep.: Hesperiidae)  Annie Pang

Honey Bee Apis mellifera (Hym.: Apidae) Annie Pang

Lasioglossum sp. (Hym.: Halictidae)  Annie Pang

Jochen Moehr sends more pictures from Metchosin, August 31.  The first is a Tolype sp.   It seems likely that the species known as T. distincta may not be distinct from the species known as T. dayi.  Until this problem is sorted out, I am treating the two forms as conspecific, under the name Tolype distincta.

Tolype distincta (Lep.: Lasiocampidae)   Jochen Moehr

Ennomos magnaria (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Moehr

Woodland Skipper Ochlodes sylvanoides (Lep.: Hesperiidae) Jochen Moehr

Oligia divesta (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Jochen Moehr

Viewers will have noticed that we have had several reports and photographs of  Neoalcis californiara from various places, and Libby Avis reports that she is swamped with them in Port Alberni – e.g. 22 of them at a light three days ago.  Jochen, too, is finding them in Metchosin:

Neoalcis californiaria (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Moehr

Jeremy Tatum writes:  The only moth that my Saanich apartment rear door could come up with this morning was a rather worn Ipimorpha nanaimo:

Ipimorpha nanaimo (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Jeremy Tatum

2017 August 31

   Jeremy Tatum writes:   Today I had another look at that Red Oak in Bow Park where I found those two large batches of Noctua pronuba eggs yesterday, and within seconds I found another two huge batches.  No wonder this introduced European moth species has become so common!

    Here are photographs of three moths by Jochen Moehr from Metchosin.  Thanks to Libby Avis for identifying the first two.  The third is another specimen (or perhaps even the same individual) of the one shown on August 27. A definitive identification has defeated both Libby Avis and Jeremy Tatum, and we are going to stick to Euxoa sp, although E. difformis is a good possibility.

Oligia [formerly Chytonix] divesta (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Jochen Moehr

Lacinipolia pensilis (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Jochen Moehr

Euxoa sp. (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Jochen Moehr

    Jochen also sends photographs of a caterpillar and a bug, found yesterday in Craigflower Park.

Nadata gibbosa (Lep.: Notodontidae)  Jochen Moehr

Leptoglossus occidentalis (Hem.: Coreidae)  Jochen Moehr

   Jeremy Tatum writes:  I visited the Goldtream Park Nature House this morning.  There were lots and lots of Neoalcis californiaria, but the moth below looked a little different:

Lambdina fiscellaria (Lep.: Geometridae)   Jeremy Tatum

   Later, I found two more of these, a long way from any buildings, sitting on a tree trunk:

Lambdina fiscellaria (Lep.: Geometridae)   Jeremy Tatum

Lambdina fiscellaria (Lep.: Geometridae)   Jeremy Tatum

   That’s all I have time for today.  More in the queue – to be done tomorrow!