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.

April 20 morning

2016 April 20 morning

 

   Rosemary Jorna writes: I saw my first Western Tiger Swallowtail on Kemp Lake Road as we drove out yesterday morning (April 19).  When we arrived at parking lot 2 at Sooke Potholes Regional Park there were two Western Spring Azures puddling in bird droppings and a fresh Mourning Cloak. I took the picture below when we returned some hours later. There were five Western Spring Azures feeding on dog dung and two others flying .

 

Western Spring Azures Celastrina echo (Lep.: Lycaenidae)  Rosemary Jorna

 

   Rosemary continues: When we stopped for lunch at Peden Bluff this industrious spider started spinning a web between my shirt and my back pack.  We watched for quite a while and then moved it off to the bush at trail side. 

 

    Robb Bennett identifies it for us (thank you. Robb!) as an immature linyphiid of the genus Neriene.

 

Neriene sp. (Ara.: Linyphiidae)   Rosemary Jorna

 

 

   Rosemary continues:  This tiny moth on a Blue-eyed Mary was the only insect obliging enough to hold still long enough to photograph on the slope of Peden Bluff.

 

Adela septentrionella (Lep.: Incurvariidae)  Rosemary Jorna.

 

 

    Wendy Ansell writes: Gerry managed to spot this dragonfly at Layritz Park (Monday Apr 18) and I was wondering if anyone could identify it for me. 

 

    Yes!   We are grateful to Rob Cannings who kindly identified it for us as a female California Darner Rhionaeschna californica.

 

California Darner Rhionaeschna californica (Odo.: Aeshnidae)  Wendy Ansell

 

 

   Mike Yip sends  photographs of a moth, and two butterflies from Nanoose that had me guessing!

 

   Jeremy Tatum comments on the moth, Epirrhoe plebeculata.  I am very interested in this moth.  The literature has the larval foodplant as Galium, but I think this is very unlikely. If anyone sees this moth ovipositing, save me the egg or, if you can’t find the egg, please let me know what plant you think it laid on.

Epirrhoe plebeculata (Lep.: Geometridae)  Mike Yip

 

Western Brown Elfin Incisalia iroides (Lep.: Lycaenidae)  Mike Yip

 

Western Pine Elfin Incisalia eryphon (Lep.: Lycaenidae) Mike Yip

 

 

   Aziza Cooper writes:  On Mount Tolmie on April 19 from 5:15 pm to 6:30 pm there were:

 

California Tortoiseshell – 2

Western Brown Elfin – 2

Sara Orangetip – 1, quite worn and not very orange.

Cabbage White – 1

Western Spring Azure – 2

Painted Lady – 1, perching on a Norway Spruce next to the road north of the reservoir.

 

Western Brown Elfin Incisalia iroides (Lep.: Lycaenidae)  Aziza Cooper

 

Painted Lady Vanessa cardui (Lep.: Nymphalidae)  Aziza Cooper

 

 

   Jeremy Tatum writes:  We’re in a spell of hot, sunny weather, so there may well be a second posting today, in the evening.  Keep the observations and photos coming!