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 23

 

   Aziza Cooper writes:  On Sunday April 20 I went to Forbidden Plateau and walked along the boardwalk. I found four Mariposa Coppers and one Oreas Comma.

 

   Later I searched the perimeter of the huge gravel parking lot just south of Nordic Road. The parking lot looks east over Mount Washington Parkway, and has slopes with lots of flowers. Along the edge I found what I think are Branded Skippers. There were at least five.

 

Across the road to the west, I found two Purplish Coppers and two Anna’s Blues.

 

 

    Jeremy Tatum comments:  Identifying the commas (especially from the uppersides alone) and the skippers poses some difficult identification problems.  No writer of whom I am aware has given a clear and unambiguous account of the distinctions between the forms Polygonia gracilis, zephyrus and oreas.  Likewise I am unaware of any clear and unambiguous published way of distinguishing between the forms Hesperia comma and Hesperia colorado, and why they are different at the species level.

 

  Because of these difficulties, from this point and until I learn of further information, I am henceforth treating all reports of the first group on this site under the label Hoary Comma Polygonia gracilis, and all reports of the second group under the label Branded Skipper Hesperia comma.   (The latter species is known in the U.K. as the Silver-spotted Skipper – a name that is used in North America for a quite different species.)  Viewers of this site looking for records of these species should bear this in mind.  We would be very glad to hear from viewers who can give us some further guidance on these species, on how we can distinguish between them, and if any of the photographs on this site should be relabelled.

 

Hoary Comma Polygonia gracilis (Lep.: Nymphalidae)  Aziza Cooper

 

Branded Skipper Hesperia comma (Lep.: Hesperiidae) Aziza Cooper

 

 

Mariposa Copper Lycaena mariposa (Lep.: Lycaenidae)  Aziza Cooper

 

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

 

 

   Gordon Hart sends a photograph of a female Striped Meadowhawk Sympetrum pallipes. We are grateful to Rob Cannings for identifying it for us.

 

Striped Meadowhawk Sympetrum pallipes (Odo.: Libellulidae) Gordon Hart