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.

August 29

2016 August 29

 

  Colias alert!  On August 24, Aziza Cooper saw a sulphur (exact species undetermined) on Gumweed at Turkey Head.

 

Jeff Gaskin reports a Western Tiger Swallowtail on Mount Tolmie, August 11, and, on August 12, also on Mount Tolmie, 1 Red Admiral, 1 West Coast Lady, and 1 Painted Lady.

 

Annie Pang found a spider weaving a web on the side-view mirror of her car on August 24.  Thanks to Robb Bennett for confirming its identification as Araneus diadematus

 

 

Araneus diadematus (Ara.: Araneidae)  Annie Pang

  

 

   Aziza Copper photographed the micro moth shown below near the Garcia reservoir on August 26.  Thanks to Libby Avis for identifying it as the Alfalfa Webworm Moth Loxostege cereralis.

 

Alfalfa Webworm Moth Loxostege cereralis (Lep.: Crambidae)  Aziza Cooper

   The name cereralis immediately raises a spelling question.  Surely this is a misspelling for cerealis ­ –  a spelling that is sometimes seen in the literature.   The definitive way to determine the correct spelling is supposed to be to go back to the original scientific description, and see what spelling the author used.  This is often easier said than done, and I didn’t manage to do it for this moth.  However, I found enough to convince myself that the cereralis spelling is the correct, or at least the preferred, spelling.  It is not named after what you eat for breakfast.  Rather, it is named for Ceres (genitive Cereris), the Goddess of Agriculture.

 

Thanks to Claudia Copley for identifying some recent photographs of grasshoppers and bush-crickets (katydids) that have been sent to Invertebrate Alert.  The first was photographed  recently by Paige Erickson-McGee.  Claudia writes that it is Melanoplus sp., and probably M. femurrubrum, the very common Red-legged Grasshopper.

 

 

Melanoplus (probably femurrubrum)  (Orth.: Acrididae)  Paige Erickson-McGee

 

Next is Meconema thalassinum, a bush-cricket, photographed by Cheryl Hoyle in Saanich on August 27.  Claudia remarks that this is non-native, and a very recent invader.

 

 Drumming Katydid Meconema thalassinum (Orth.: Tettigoniidae)  Cheryl Hoyle

 

Claudia has also identified Cheryl Hoyle’s grasshopper posted on August 5. Scroll down to that date to see the photograph and the identification.