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.

February 7

2017 February 7

 

  Rosemary Jorna sends pictures of a harvestman from Kemp Lake Road, Otter Point, February 2.  Jeremy Tatum writes: I thought it looked a little different from the usual European Phalangium opilio, so I sent the photographs to Dr Philip Bragg of the University of British Columbia.  While he can’t be certain without seeing the actual specimen, he believes it is a native species of Leiobunum. 

 

Harvestman.  Probably Leiobunum sp. (Opiliones:  Sclerosomatidae)   Rosemary Jorna

 

Harvestman.  Probably Leiobunum sp. (Opiliones:  Sclerosomatidae)   Rosemary Jorna

 

 

  There is to be a TV program on “The Wild World of Insects Inside Homes” on Channel Shaw 2 = Telus 100, at 8:00 pm on Thursday February 9.  This should be of interest to invertebrate enthusiasts.   You may have noticed a photograph of a spider on the front cover of this week’s TV Scene.  Robb Bennett tells me that the spider is possibly a species of Cheiracanthium (Eutichuridae), often common in homes, but more so in eastern Canada than here on the west coast.