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 September 4

2022 September 4

    We start today with three photographs of the unusual grey (rather than the usual brown) form of Neoalcis californiara, two from Jochen Möhr in Metchosin today, and one from Keith Taylor in Victoria, August 31.  Keith’s is so pale that at first, writes Jeremy Tatum, I didn’t recognize it as this species.

 

Neoalcis californiara (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Möhr

Neoalcis californiara (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Möhr

 

 

Neoalcis californiara (Lep.: Geometridae)  Keith Taylor

   Another identification problem – Jochen sent two photographs of the June Beetle.  (September is a little late!)  I asked Scott Gilmore how I could distinguish between Polyphylla decemlineata and P. crinita.  Scott writes:  Having chatted with Andrew Smith about this recently, I conclude that it is currently not possible. It is likely that everything on the island is crinita but there is a bunch of genetic work needed to confirm species within this rather confusing genus.

Polyphylla (probably crinita) (Col.: Scarabaeidae)  Jochen Möhr

Polyphylla (probably crinita) (Col.: Scarabaeidae)  Jochen Möhr

 

Here’s a spider photograph at night by Ian Cooper in Colquitz River Park, September 3.  We thank Dr Robb Bennett for confirming Ian’s identification:

Metellina sp. (Ara.: Tetragnathidae)  Ian Cooper

 

That night Ian made some interesting observations of a pair of Araneus diadematus.  Ian writes: I went for a pre-dawn photo shoot this morning and witnessed the mating drama of a male and female Araneus diadematus spiders in Colquitz River Park around 5 a.m. yesterday morning (2022 September  3). This was by chance, as I happened to notice a small male in the vicinity of a much larger female that I’d just photographed in the middle of her web.  Realizing this may be the beginning of a mating encounter, I stuck around to see what, if anything, would happen. Every so often, the female could be seen shaking vigorously in the centre of her web and I realized there were threads of silk connecting the two, as I could see he was also being shaken by the vibrations from some distance away. I’m not sure which of the two was initiating / propagating the vibrations, or if they were both doing it, but the female shook much more intensely than the smaller male.  It was intriguing to watch the drama play out.