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.

September 11

2016 September 11

 

   There are still Cabbage Whites around.  Aziza Cooper sends a photograph of one from Panama Flats, September 10.  The boldness of the black spots indicates that it is a late summer female.

 

Cabbage White Pieris rapae (Lep.: Pieridae)  Aziza Cooper

 

   Aziza also saw two Pine Whites in East Sooke Park on September 9.

 

 

   Jeremy Tatum sends pictures of two woolly bears.  The first is a Fall Webworm – a later instar than the one shown on September 8.  The second is an unusually pale variety of Lophocampa maculata in its third instar, from Poirier Lake, September 10.

 

Fall Webworm Hyphantria cunea (Lep.: Erebidae – Arctiinae)  Jeremy Tatum

 

Spotted Tiger Moth Lophocampa maculata (Lep.: Erebidae – Arctiinae)  Jeremy Tatum

   Aziza Cooper photographed a slug and a dragonfly at East Sooke Park, September 9.  Thank you, Rob Cannings, for confirming the dragonfly identification.

 

Reticulate Taildropper Prophysaon andersonii (Pul.: Anadeniidae) Aziza Cooper

 

Variegated Meadowhawk  Sympetrum corruptum (Odo.: Libellulidae) Aziza Cooper