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 December 31

2022 December 31

Ian Cooper sends pictures of spiders from the Galloping Goose Trail in View Royal (first picture below) and from Colquitz River Park, December 30.

 

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Pimoid spider (Ara.: Pimoidae)  Ian Cooper

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Linyphiid spider  (Ara.: Linyphiidae) Ian Cooper

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Long-jawed Orb-weaver (Ara.: Tetragnathidae)   Ian Cooper

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Long-jawed Orb-weaver (Ara.: Tetragnathidae)   Ian Cooper

2022 December 29

2022 December 29

 

   Val George writes that this moth was on the walls of his Oak Bay house yesterday morning, December 29.  This is a slightly latish date for this moth, just as Cara Gibson’s photograph on October 19 this year was a little early.  Apart from these two, dates recorded in Invert Alert from 2010 until the present have been from  November 1 to December 13.

 

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Erannis vancouverensis/defoliaria (Lep.: Geometridae)  Val George

2022 December 27

2022 December 27

 

   Jochen Möhr writes from Metchosin:  After a moist night with temperatures around
+9 degrees C, this morning a dozen Operophtera near the light, some dead in the rain, some out of reach of the tripod-mounted camera.  Here are pictures of some of them.

  Jeremy Tatum writes:  The question is:  Are they European Winter Moths O. brumata, or our native Western Winter Moths O. occidentalis?   In my (not infallible!) judgement, two are almost certainly brumata, two are almost certainly occidentalis, and I’m not sure of the other two.

 

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Operophtera brumata (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Möhr

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Operophtera brumata (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Möhr

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Operophtera brumata/occidentalis? (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Möhr

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Operophtera brumata/occidentalis? (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Möhr

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Operophtera occidentalis (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Möhr

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Operophtera occidentalis (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Möhr

2022 December 21

2022 December 21

 

   The Sun reached its greatest southerly declination at 1:48 pm  PST today.  In other words, winter has started – and it has started with a wintry blast. Unsurprisingly no invertebrates have been reported today.   Instead, I pass along a small item of interest from outside the place and time interval usual for this site.  I just heard recently that an American Lady was
seen in September in Cornwall, southwest England.

2022 December 15

2022 December 15

 

  CHANGE OF ADDRESS:   Contributions (photographs or observations) to
Invertebrate Alert should now be sent to
 tatumjb352@gmail.com   and no longer to  jtatum@uvic.ca

 

  Viewers may remember a photograph by Jochen Möhr on the November 24 posting of a moth that we had been unable to identify.  It has now been identified as Acleris (probably semiannula).  For more details, see the November 24 posting, which has now been modified in view of this identification.