2107 April 25

 

   Annie Pang sends a photograph of a hover fly (syrphid), from Gorge Park, April 24.  As flies go, syrphids are relatively attractive insects, but are, unfortunately, notoriously difficult to identify to species from photographs. Specialists often want to check out the shape of a tiny structure at the base of the wing, called a calypter.

 

Hover fly (Dip.: Syrphidae)  Annie Pang

   Annie also sends a photograph of a bee fly (Bombyliid).  They are parasitoids of Andrena bees.

 

 

 

 

Rosemary Jorna sends some fascinating photographs of a globose springtail from Mount Bluff (above Camp Bernard), April 24.   (Still no butterflies, she writes!)  Since springtails are no longer considered to be insects (Class Insecta), and Collembola no longer an Order, I believe the current classification of Rosemary’s animal is something like this:

 

Phylum Arthropoda

Subphylum Hexapoda

Class Entognatha

Subclass Collembola (springtails)

Order Symphypleona (globose springtails)

Family  Dicyrtomidae

Genus Ptenothrix

Species Ptenothrix maculosa

 

 

 

Ptenothrix maculosa (Symphypleona: Dicyrtomidae)  Rosemary Jorna

Jochen Moehr has recently moved to a new part of Metchosin – near Lindholm Road – and it appears to be an exciting place for moths.  He has sent a big bunch of photographs taken on the stucco today.  Jeremy Tatum writes:  I’m posting now the few that I have been able to identify today.  Others will be posted as we manage to identify them.

 

The first is another one in the Egira rubrica/perlubens puzzle – except that now that we have sorted that puzzle out, I am sure that Jochen’s moth is a classic no-questions Egira rubrica.  Viewers may find it interesting to compare it with the images of the two species on the April 24 posting.

 

   The moth below may be Hydriomena californiata, though Libby Avis warns that April is a bit early for this species, and that some of the Hydriomena (highflyers) are really tricky, so it could be another species.

 

Feralia comstocki (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Jochen Moehr