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.

2024 March 29

2024 March 29

   Ian Cooper sends photographs of a March Fly (also known as St Mark’s Fly).   Dr Rob Cannings writes: “This is a female of a species of Bibio (Diptera: Bibionidae). Known as March Flies (some appear in March). This is the only genus we have here in the family, but there are quite a few species and I can’t tell them apart without a microscope and a lot of trouble!

Interestingly, the most abundant insects found in BC Eocene fossils are in the genus Plecia in the same family. Plecia doesn’t get much farther north now than Florida, I think.”

 

Bibio sp. (Dip.: Bibionidae)  Ian Cooper

Bibio sp. (Dip.: Bibionidae)  Ian Cooper

 

 

Jochen Möhr sends photographs of two pug moths from Metchosin.  They are clearly one of two similar species, Eupithecia ravocostaliata or E. nevadata.  Jeremy Tatum thinks probably E. ravocostaliata,  but this is not a certain identification.  They could be the other one.

Eupithecia  (probably ravocostaliata)  (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Möhr

Eupithecia  (probably ravocostaliata)  (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Möhr