2017 March 18

   Ian sends a bunch of very-challenging-to-identify invertebrates from Sidney Island today.

We are grateful to Charlene Wood for identifying the creature below as a Bristly Millipede.  Charlene writes:  I doubt that these are thoroughly known for our area.  Of the six species documented north of Mexico, Polyxenus lagurus is the most common and widespread.

Jeremy Tatum thinks that the next one might be a caterpillar of a noctuid – perhaps even noctuine – moth.

Noctuid caterpillar?   Ian Cruickshank

   The third one might also be a noctuid caterpillar, but I’m not 100 percent certain that it isn’t a beetle grub!

Possibly another noctuid.  Ian Cruickshank

Jeremy Tatum continues: The last one looks, on the face of it, to be the most obscure and impossible to identify, but we’re in luck.  It is a gall on Broom, and we think it might be the mite Aceria genistae.   That’s tentative at the moment, while we await the opinion of an expert.  Apparently there are lots of these galls on the Broom on Sidney Island.

 Possibly Aceria genistae (Acari:  Eriophyidae)   Ian Cruickshank