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.

June 18

2017 June 18

 

   Jeremy Tatum writes:  Here is a caterpillar of Egira curialis from the garden of my Saanich apartment.  It was feeding on the flowers of Welsh Poppy Meconopsis cambrica.

 

 Egira curialis (Lep.: Noctuidae) Jeremy Tatum

Egira curialis (Lep.: Noctuidae) Jeremy Tatum

 

June 17 morning

From Gordon Hart

Hello Butterfly Counters,

The June count starts today, Saturday June 17, for the period ending Sunday June 25. You can submit a count anytime over this period, and you can do more than one count, just use a separate form for each count. In the case of repeat counts, or more than one person counting an area, I will take the highest count for each species.
Please use the form at https://www.vicnhs.bc.ca/?p=33 on the Victoria Natural History Society website .
The count area is the same as the Christmas Bird Count circle (attached). For butterfly identification there are numerous internet sites, but most or all Victoria species are listed on E-Fauna. If you select by photographer, all the photos under James Miskelly’s name are of Victoria species. Here is the link: http://linnet.geog.ubc.ca/efauna/photoGallery/Gallery.aspx?gr=showall&pid=175&photographer=miskelly,%20james&specrep=0
If you would like a suggestion for an area to count, please send me an email.

In addition to the counts, a monthly butterfly walk is held on the first Sunday of each month – the next walk will be on July 2. We start at the summit of Mount Tolmie at 1pm, and decide where to go from there. I will send out another reminder the week before. 

Thank-you for submitting your sightings and happy counting!

Gordon Hart
Butterfly Count Coordinator
Victoria Natural History Society
Count circle map link:

 

June 16

2017 June 16

 

   Aziza Cooper writes:  Yesterday, June 15, I found this lovely snail at Martindale in a puddle on the road next to the central north/south ditch beside Garcia Nursery.

 

   Jeremy Tatum writes:  I believe this is the European Cepaea nemoralis, a terrestrial snail, which probably isn’t very comfortable in the water.   Let us hope it got out soon.


Cepaea nemoralis (Pul.: Helicidae)  Aziza Cooper

 

 

   Rosemary Jorna photographed the beetle below on a maple in the Kemp Lake area on June 14.  Beetles are the largest Order in the animal kingdom, and not all of them can be easily identified.  However, Charlene Wood tells us that it is in the Family Chrysomelidae¸ and we’ll be content with that.

 

Leaf beetle (Col.: Chrysomelidae)  Rosemary Jorna

 

 

   Val George writes:  Butterflies today, June 16, at or near the Mount Tolmie reservoir:  1 West Coast Lady (photo), 3 Painted Ladies, 2 Red Admirals, 1 Lorquin’s Admiral, 2 Western Tiger Swallowtails.

   Jeremy Tatum  writes: That’s the first West Coast Lady reported to Invert Alert this year.  I’ve been going to Mount Tolmie most days, but I decided not to go today – just my luck!

West Coast Lady Vanessa annabella (Lep.: Nymphalidae) Val George

 

 

 

 

 

June 15

2017 June 15

 

   Jeremy Tatum writes:

 

   I see that the Sussex (England) butterfly site gave a link to our site on their May 27 posting.  We should therefore return the compliment and give a link to their great site:

www.sussex-butterflies.org.uk/sightings/

 

    Re the Monarch reported by Devon Parker (see June 14 morning posting), I made enquiries as to whether they are kept at Butterfly Gardens.  Kurtis Herperger tells me that they are not.  He agrees with me that local sightings could possibly be genuine wild butterflies, but that such sightings are always suspect because of the wedding release industry.  He also notes that school classroom releases are moving away from Painted Ladies towards Monarchs.

 

   A rainy day today – so no photographs.

June 14, evening

2017 June 14 evening

 

  Annie Pang shows an underside of a Painted Lady from Gorge Park.

 

Painted Lady Vanessa cardui (Lep.: Nymphalidae)  Annie Pang

 

Dar Churcher sends a photograph of a Cedar Hairstreak  from Colwood, June 6.

 

Cedar Hairstreak Mitoura rosneri (Lep.: Lycaenidae)  Dar Churcher

 

She sends a photograph of a Large Yellow Underwing, shortly after emergence from its pupa. It is a little further on than the moth shown on David Allinson’s photograph (see June 9).  The wings on the latter photograph were still small stubs.  In Dar’s photograph, the wings have expanded, but are still limp.  They will harden and stiffen.

Large Yellow Underwing Noctua pronuba (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Dar Churcher

   Dar also sends a photograph of a spider from her kitchen.  She correctly identified it as a gnaphosid.  Thanks to Sean McCann for taking it further – to genus Sergiolus

 

 

Sergiolus sp. (Ara.: Gnaphosidae)  Dar Churcher

 

Nathan Fisk sends a photograph of a Red Admiral from Fort Rodd Hill, June 13.

 

Red Admiral Vanessa atalanta (Lep.: Nymphalidae)  Nathan Fisk

   You’d think a small crab spider would be no match for a large bumblebee.  But think again!  Another Nathan Fisk photograph from Fort Rodd Hill.  I’m not quite certain, but I think the other two insects in the photograph (mixed in with the stamens) may be thripses. I’m also not sure what the plural of thrips is.  Thripses?  Or maybe thripides? I don’t know!

 

Misumena vatia (Ara.: Thomisidae) with

Bombus melanopygus (Hym.: Apidae)
Nathan Fisk

   Lastly, for today, a moth from near Blenkinsop Lake, June 13.

 

Aseptis binotata ( Lep.: Noctuidae) Jeremy Tatum