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.

June 22

2016 June 22

 

   Marie O’Shaughnessy writes: Here are a couple of butterflies I found at Government House yesterday, June 21st – a Painted Lady and a Lorquin’s Admiral.  Also there, 9 Cabbage Whites and 4 Western Tiger Swallowtails.

 

Painted Lady Vanessa cardui (Lep.: Nymphalidae)  Marie O’Shaughnessy

 

Lorquin’s Admiral Limenitis lorquini (Lep.: Nymphalidae)  Marie O’Shaughnessy

 

 

   Jeremy Tatum writes:  Today, June 22, I found a first or, probably, second instar caterpillar of Lorquin’s Admiral at Swan Lake.  This is unusual at this time of year.  In this stage of development, it should be just about ready to construct its little hibernaculum in which it spends the winter.  I don’t know how it will enjoy spending the hottest months of the year, July and August, in a hibernaculum hoping that spring is just ahead. The other slightly unusual thing is that it was feeding on Black Hawthorn Crataegus douglasii.  I have never seen it on this plant before, the usual foods being Ocean Spray, willow, or crabapple.  However, hawthorn is listed by Guppy and Shepard as a recorded foodplant.