2024 July 18 evening

Here’s another selection of recent photographs from Ian Cooper.  All photos were taken on July 17 by the #Galloping Goose Trail & *Colquitz River Park.

#Large Yellow Underwing Noctua pronuba  (Lep.:  Noctuidae)  Ian Cooper

The next moth was a bit of a puzzler.  Although it appears to be in good condition, it has almost no obvious distinctive markings or pattern.  In spite of that, Libby Avis, Jeremy Tatum and Ian Cooper all came up with “Possibly or probably Noctua comes, but not certain.”  But, although individually uncertain, we all converged on to the same species, so I‘m happy to label it, writes Jeremy, as Noctua comes, without any qualifying uncertainty.

#Lesser Yellow Underwing Noctua comes  (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Ian Cooper

* Red ‘candy striped’ variant of Enoplognatha ovata (Ara.: Theridiidae)   Ian Cooper
I don’t see the red candy striped variant often, so I was glad to spot this one in Colquitz River Park.

* Enoplognatha ovata (Ara.: Theridiidae) with a male crane fly prey.
A somewhat difficult photo to capture because of the ‘busy’ background, but the sight of this small spider with a much larger prey was intriguing.

# Callobius sp. (probably pictus)  (Ara.: Amaurobiidae)  Ian Cooper
I’ve seen this spider hiding in its crevice residence on a conifer tree by the GG Trail previously. This time it was out in the open.

#Mayfly  (Ephemeroptera)   Ian Cooper

A lady beetle puzzle:   Ian Cooper photographed the first of these below in Vic West, and Sher Falls photographed the second (two photographs of the same individual) in Nanaimo.  These are Asian Lady Beetles Harmonia axyridis.  This lady beetle has many different forms, many of which don’t look at all like these ones.  Libby Avis tells us that the form conspicua is black with one red blotch on each elytron, so this may be Ian’s beetle.  The form spectabilis is black with two red blotches on each elytron, so this may be Sher’s.

Harmonia axyridis  (Col.: Coccinellidae)  Ian Cooper 

Harmonia axyridis  (Col.: Coccinellidae)  Sher Falls

Jeremy Tatum writes:  At 5:30 pm today there was a pristine fresh Anise Swallowtail resting with its wings fully open on the Oregon Grape (now Berberis, formerly Mahonia) just outside the entrance to the Mount Tolmie reservoir.  A brief overhead fly-by of a Lorquin’s Admiral was the only other butterfly I saw.

Val George writes:  This Eulithis xylina was on the wall of my Oak Bay house this morning, July 18

Northwestern Phoenix  Eulithis xylina  (Lep.: Geometridae)   Val George