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 August 22 morning

2024 August 22 morning

   No Invertebrate Alert was issued on August 21.

Aziza Cooper sends a photograph of a Robin’s Pincushion, or Bedeguar, from Pedder Bay, August 20. This is a gall formed on a wild rose (usually on a nonnative species rather than on a Nootka Rose) by the larva of the gall wasp Diplolepis rosae.

Robin’s Pincushion Diplolepis rosae (Hym.: Cynipidae)  Aziza Cooper

 

Jeremy Tatum shows a caterpillar found on Gumweed at Esquimalt Lagoon, August 21.

Cucullia montanae  (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Jeremy Tatum