2017 September 18

 

   Jochen Moehr sends a photograph of a beetle from his property in Metchosin.  Thanks for Charlene Wood, who writes:  Most beetles have 11 antennal segments, but more important to family ID are the tarsal segments on all three sets of legs. Luckily, this photo gives another clue that is helpful in this case – the maxillary palp is triangular in shape, which ruled out the similar shaped Ground Beetles and leads me to the family Tenebrionidae (Darkling Beetles). Tentatively, it looks to be in the genus Helops. Five species range into SW Canada. 

 

Probably Helops sp. (Col.: Tenebrionidae) Jochen Moehr

 

   Jochen also sends photographs of more moths and a caddisfly from Metchosin.  Thanks for Libby Avis for doing the identifications.  Some of the moths in the Agrochola/Sunira group can be a challenge to identify.  Jochen’s moth is either Sunira decipiens or S. bicolorago, and, from the ranges of these two species, it is most likely decipiens.

 

Sunira decipiens (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Jochen Moehr

 

 

Of the next one, Libby writes:  This one is in what PNWM refers to as the “Xestia finatimis species group”. Four very similar species, three of them (finatimis, infimatis & verniloides) very hard to distinguish even when they aren’t faded. This one looks to me like possibly finatimis or verniloides,  but I wouldn’t care to make a bet on it!

 

 

 

Xestia sp. (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Jochen Moehr

 

 

Autographa californica (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Jochen Moehr

 

   Next:  Tetracis probably pallulata (jubararia is the other option for the fall). Used to be that pallulata was considered to be the one with darker median lines, closer together which this one has. However,  but I read a paper on them a while ago which seemed to cast doubt on the whole thing – nothing ever seems to be simple anymore!

 

Tetracis (probably pallulata) (Lep.: Geometridae)  Jochen Moehr

 

   Of the caddisfly, Libby writes:  We get a lot of caddises at the moth light and I got a bunch of them ID’d by BOLD a few years ago. This one looks like a pretty good match for one of ours which was confirmed as Lenarchus rho photo attached) but there are also other Lenarchus species which are similar and I’m not that confident on how far you can go on these visually.

 

Caddisfly Lenarchus (maybe rho) (Tri.: Limnephilidae)

Jochen Moehr