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 22

2017 August 22

 

   Jeff Gaskin writes:  Yesterday, August 21, just after 5 p.m. Kirsten Mills and I had 2 Red Admirals and 4 Painted Ladies on Mount Tolmie.  Most of the ladies looked very faded. Also, yesterday in Playfair Park, were 3 Lorquin’s Admirals in the flower garden.

 

    Kirsten Mills also reports that she had a Western Tiger Swallowtail in the parking lot at the Butchart Gardens.  Also, there were 3 Pine Whites.

 

  Jeremy Tatum writes: I visited McIntyre reservoir this morning.  I think if one were to make a determined and persistent count of the Cabbage Whites around the reservoir and in the surrounding brussels sprouts fields, one would come up with several hundred, and quite possibly a thousand, Cabbage Whites.  I didn’t see any other butterfly species there, but it is still very much worth a visit – see Jeff’s account of his visit there in yesterday’s posting. 

  Jody Wells sends photographs of what he describes as two colour varieties of  “looks like a grasshopper — flies looking like a butterfly”.  Claudia Copley and Jeremy Tatum agree that these are indeed two colour varieties of Dissosteira carolina.  This species has been given several names, such as Carolina Grasshopper, Carolina Locust and Mourning Cloak Grasshopper  –  the latter because, when in flight, it can indeed be mistaken at first for a Mourning Cloak butterfly.


Dissosteira carolina (Orth.: Acrididae)  Jody Wells

 


Dissosteira carolina (Orth.: Acrididae)  Jody Wells

 

 

 

   Jody also sends a picture of a Sympetrum dragonfly from Martindale.  Rob Cannings writes: Gosh, Jeremy, I’m not sure. Few of the really useful characters are in view, although colour of wing venation and stigma, the black on sides of abdomen, elimination of other species, and the fact that it’s by far the most common Sympetrum in late summer in our area suggest that it’s a Striped Meadowhawk S. pallipes. Even a glimpse of the dorsal surface of the thorax (let alone the sides) would show it’s that species or not. Anyway, that’s my guess. 

 


Sympetrum sp. (Odo.: Libellulidae)  Jody Wells