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.

March 01

2015 March 1

 

   Bill Katz reports an Orthosia hibisci from the Interfaith Chapel at UVic on February 28.  

 

   Bill sends a photograph of a species of snout from his Summit Hill garage, February 28.  Jeremy writes: “I can’t tell for certain what species it is, though I think it is most likely Hypena decorata”.

 

Hypena (maybe decorata) (Lep.: Erebidae – Hypeninae)

Bill Katz

 

 

   Bill also sends photos of a pug and a wave from the Nature House at Goldstream Park, March 1. 

 

Eupithecia ravocostaliata (Lep.: Geometridae) Bill Katz

 

 

Venusia obsoleta (Lep.: Geometridae) Bill Katz

 

 

   On February 17 we posted a picture of a geometrid caterpillar photographed by Scott Gilmore at Upper Lantzville on Ceanothus thyrsiflorus.   We speculated that it might be a species of Drepanulatrix.  Scott writes that these caterpillars have now pupated, and we wait with excitement to see what they turn out to be.  The green pupa has only just been formed.  In a day or two it will be as hard and brown as the others.

 

 Geometrid pupae – possibly Drepanulatrix sp. (Lep.: Geometridae) Scott Gilmore