2024 May 5

  Gordon Hart sends photographs of a Painted Lady butterfly and a Bumble Bee from Mount Tolmie, May 4.  We thank Steven Roias for identifying the bumble bee as a queen Bombus fervidus californicus.

 Painted Lady Vanessa cardui  (Lep.: Nymphalidae)  Gordon Hart

Queen Bombus fervidus californicus  (Hym.: Apidae)  Gordon Hart

Ian Cooper sends a photograph of a chironomid midge carrying two water mite larvae.  Dr Heather Proctor writes:  Indeed, a chironomid, sporting a couple of parasitic water mite larvae (Prostigmata: Hydrachnidiae). I can’t identify them any more finely than that, as members of a few water mite superfamilies have chironomids as hosts.

Non-biting midge (Dip.: Chironomidae) with
parasitic water mite larvae (Prostigmata: Hydrachnidiae)
Ian Cooper

Ian also sends photographs of two beetles and a springtail.  We thank Scott Gilmore for confirming Ian’s correct tentative identification of the beetles.   Like the midge above, one of the beetles carries two mites.  Dr Proctor says Order Mesostigmata.  The beetle is a snail-eating beetle, although on this occasion it is having earthworm for supper.

Scaphinotus angusticollis (Col.: Carabidae)  Ian Cooper

Left: Hairy Spider Weevil Barypeithes pellucidus (Col.: Curculionidae)
Right:  Globose springtail, probably Ptenothrix sp. (Coll.: Dicyrtomidae)
Ian Cooper

Two more from Ian – a spider and a slug.  First,  a folding-door spider at its burrow entrance – Antrodiaetus pacificus (Mygalomorphae)

Antrodiaetus pacificus (Ara. – Myg:   Antrodiaetidae)

Arion subfuscus (Pul.: Arionidae)   Ian Cooper