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.

August 13

2015 August 13

 

   Aziza Cooper writes:  Saturday is the beginning of the August Butterfly Count. The count period is from the 3rd Saturday to the 4th Sunday: August 15 to August 23.

 

The butterflies have been hard to find lately, since the warm weather has caused them to finish their cycles quite early this year. There are a few later butterflies like Purplish Copper, and also some that have two cycles per season, plus possible strays and migrants like the sulfurs we saw last year. Hilltops are still possible locations for butterflies.

 

Please use the form at https://www.vicnhs.bc.ca/website/index.php/butterfly-count to submit your results. Submit a separate form for each area you count, so I can take the higher number in case of double counting.

 

If you’d like a suggestion about what area to count, send me an email. If you want to be removed from this list or if you know of anyone who would like to be added, please email me.

 

Thanks for submitting your sightings, and happy counting! 

 

The monthly butterfly walk is held on the first Sunday of each month. The next walk is on September 6. We meet at Mt Tolmie summit at 1:00pm and decide on our destination from there. The walk will be cancelled if the weather is cool or rainy. Please check the VNHS calendar [and this site!  –  Jeremy] for changes and updates.

 

Enjoy the butterflies!

 

   Jeremy Tatum writes:  If the weather is suitable, I am planning to be at the northernmost Island View Beach parking lot at 1:30 pm on Friday August 14, to walk to Cordova Spit to see if I can find the Western Branded Skipper.  Company very welcome.

 

   Gordon Hart writes:  On Monday, August 10, I also tried to find the Branded Skipper, but had no success from Island View Beach to Cordova Bay Spit (Saanichton Spit). I did see the clouds of Woodland Skippers you mentioned, a couple of Cabbage Whites and several Ringlets/ Large Heaths (C. tullia), and at least one Essex Skipper, photo attached. There were many other insects enjoying the Grindelia (gumweed) flowers. The one attached is a sand wasp   At home today August 12, one Grey Hairstreak appeared briefly amongst many Woodland Skippers and a couple of Cabbage Whites.

 

 

Large Heath Coenonympha tullia (Lep.: Nymphalidae – Satyrinae)   Gordon Hart

 

 

Essex Skipper Thymelicus lineola (Lep.: Hesperiidae)  Gordon Hart

 

 

Sand wasp Bembix sp. (Hym.:  Crabronidae – Bembicinae)  Gordon Hart

 

 

   Jeremy Tatum sends photographs of a clothes moth from his bedroom, and two caterpillars. The first one is Acronicta dactylina, which feeds on alder.  The second is

Nadata gibbosa, which usually feeds on oak, though this one, unusually, was on Amelanchier (Saskatoonberry).  Also from his bedroom – evidently a rich source of invertebrates – a spider, identified by Robb Bennett, who writes: That’s a male gnaphosid; almost certainly Scotophaeus blackwalli. Palaearctic species now widespread in southern Nearctic and Neotropics and apparently continuing to expand its range.  Only fairly recently have we been seeing it around here (records from Victoria area and Salmon Arm).

 

Tineola bisselliella (Lep.: Tineidae)  Jeremy Tatum

 

Acronicta dactylina (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Jeremy Tatum

 

Nadata gibbosa (Lep.: Notodontidae)   Jeremy Tatum

 

Scotophaeus blackwalli (Ara.:  Gnaphosidae)  Jeremy Tatum

 

  nDMFU

 

 

 

August 12

2015 August 12

 

   The season seems to be drawing rapidly to a close for most butterflies – with the exception of the Woodland Skipper.  There are lots of these around.  Jeremy Tatum noted clouds of them flitting around thistle and burdock flowers at UVic yesterday.  Today Anne Murray writes from Saturna Island (a welcome contribution – we get few reports from there): There are suddenly dozens of these little butterflies around our lavender flowers on Saturna Island. Am I correct in identifying them as Woodland Skippers?  [Yes, you are!  –  Jeremy]  I am trying to attract native butterflies to our garden here. Any suggestions for other good larval/nectar plants would be most helpful. [I’ll try and reply sometime.  In the meantime, Lavender is as good a nectaring flower as any (see postings of July 23 and July 30 for association of this butterfly with Lavender) – though I’ll have some other suggestions later – and the foodplant of the Woodland Skipper caterpillars is grass!  They are probably not all that particular as to species of grass, though I haven’t investigated that at length.]    And Rosemary Jorna sends a photograph of an adult from near Kemp Lake.  The “Woodland” in its English name is merely a translation of its Latin name sylvanoides.  The butterfly can be seen in almost any habitat other than woodland!

 

Woodland Skipper Ochlodes sylvanoides (Lep.: Hesperiidae)  Rosemary Jorna

 

   Rosemary sends several other photographs of insects and spiders.  We show some of them here. We are still trying to identify some of the others before posting them.  If any viewer can identify those below that are incompletely identified, please do let us know.

 

Ants (Hym.:  Formicidae) on Tansy       Rosemary Jorna

 

Bumble bee Bombus sp. (Hym.: Apidae)  Rosemary Jorna

 

Bumble bee Bombus sp. (Hym.: Apidae)  Rosemary Jorna

 

 

Garden Spider Araneus diadematus (Ara.: Aranaeidae)  Rosemary Jorna

 

Crab spider Misumena vatia (Ara.: Thomisiidae)  Rosemary Jorna

 

Thanks to Scott Gilmore for identifying the beetle below.

 


Megapenthes sp. (Col.: Elateridae)  Rosemary Jorna

 

 

   Scott Gilmore sends photographs of a moth caterpillar and two beetles from Upper Lantzville.

 

American Lappet Moth 

Phyllodesma americana (Lep.: Lasiocampidae)

Scott Gilmore

 

American Lappet Moth 

Phyllodesma americana (Lep.: Lasiocampidae)

Scott Gilmore

 

American Lappet Moth 

Phyllodesma americana (Lep.: Lasiocampidae)

Scott Gilmore

 

 

Uloma longula (Col,: Tenebrionidae)  Scott Gilmore

Black Vine Weevil  Otiorhynchus sulcatus (Col.: Curculionidae)

Scott Gilmore

 

 

   Jeremy Tatum reports a Lorquin’s Admiral today from Bow Park, Saanich.

 

August 11

2015 August 11

 

   Jeff Gaskin writes:  On Monday evening August 10, around 6:45 pm. there were 3 Painted Ladies hilltopping on Christmas Hill and nothing else. Then, today on Tuesday August 11, at noon in Beacon Hill Park near the children’s petting zoo, were 2 Pine Whites.

August 10

2015 August 10

 

  Ann Nightingale sends a picture of a giant sawfly larva from Pedder  Bay today.

 

Giant sawfly Cimbex americana (Hym.:  Cimbicidae)  Ann Nightingale

 

 

   Jeremy Tatum went hill-topping on Mount Douglas at 7:00 pm today.  He scored one each of Red Admiral and Painted Lady.   I don’t think anyone has done Highrock Park in Esquimalt yet.

 

   Scott Gilmore writes:  I found an interesting plant bug (Miridae) on my house earlier today. I think it is in the genus Phytocoris.

 

Plant bug, probably Phytocoris sp. (Hem.: Miridae) Scott Gilmore

August 9

2015 August 9

 

   Jeremy Tatum writes:  I went to Cordova Spit today in another attempt to find a Western Branded Skipper.  Phew!  It’s a long walk from IVB in this heat.  On the way there, in the grassy fields just inshore from IVB, there were clouds of Woodland Skippers, and a very few Large Heaths (C. tullia) and Cabbage Whites.  The spit itself at first seemed to be totally barren of all butterflies, but I persisted and saw about two Woodland Skippers and a Purplish Copper.  And then I got it – just one very brief glimpse of a single Western Banded Skipper.  It was nectaring on Grindelia for just a second, and then it flew off and vanished.  However, even though I saw only a very brief glimpse, it was enough to answer one question.  I had wondered if I was failing to recognize the Western Branded Skipper.  Perhaps many of the butterflies that I had been dismissing as Woodland Skippers were in fact Western Branded Skippers, which I had failed to recognize. Well, my one brief glimpse answered that question.  Even at a casual glance it was obvious what it was. The chance of confusing the two species is zero.  The Western Branded Skipper is an entirely different animal.  Whether it is a different animal than the Common Branded Skipper I’m not so sure.  Small and subtle differences in museum specimens from different populations of a widely-distributed species do not amount to different species. Someone please find me a caterpillar!

 

   So – if the Western Branded Skipper is not yet on your life list, there is a small – but finite – chance at Cordova Spit just now.

 

   No more invertebrate news today. Too hot for people and for butterflies, I think.