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.

September 23

2017 September 23

 

   Jeremy Tatum writes:  I visited McIntyre Reservoir today in hopes of seeing an American Lady.  No such luck, and unfortunately most of the Teasels are now past flowering.  There are a very few Teasels left, and lots of other flowers, so it is still worth a look to find Painted or American Ladies.

 

I did see from one to three (not sure which) Orange Sulphurs.  The one I had a good look at was obviously a female (yellow spots inside the broad terminal band), and it was every bit as deep orange as a male Orange Sulphur.  This makes me think again quite seriously about those paler sulphurs seen during the VNHS September Butterfly Walk.  I may have too hastily dismissed them as female Orange Sulphurs, and I now wonder if in fact they may have been Clouded Sulphurs.  I don’t think they were the form helice that occurs in many female sulphur species, because forma helice is almost as white as a Cabbage White.  If anyone has photos of these paler sulphurs from the VNHS Butterfly Walk, we would be very interested to see them.

 

There were still lots of Cabbage Whites at McIntyre reservoir.

 

Rosemary Jorna writes from Kemp Lake Road:  I do not know if this spider lived in our house or came in with me as I had been working in the yard. We I came in for coffee and I settled down on the couch.   After a few minutes it ran down my arm and ended up on our deck for photos before a quick trip out back to a new home.

Robb Bennett writes:

It could be a female of Steatoda grossa but my first guess would be Steatoda albomaculata.  Steatoda grossa females are usually mostly dark brown but they often have some amount of pale patterning. Males of grossa are patterned and this is likely the same scenario as in Latrodectus (same family – Theridiidae) where the adult males retain juvenile patterning and some females do, too, especially subadults.

 

Steatoda sp.(Ara.: Theridiidae)  Rosemary Jorna

 

Bill Savale found some tiny beetles in a long-dried specimen of a fungus that he had had for some years.  Many thanks to Charlene Wood for identifying them and photographing them. They are at most 1.5 mm in length.  Have a look on a ruler to remind yourself of what a millimetre looks like to appreciate Charlene’s skill in getting the photograph.

 

Hadraule blaisdelli (Col.:  Ciidae)  Charlene Wood

 

Jeremy Tatum writes:  The Pheosia rimosa caterpillar shown on September 20 has now grown a lot and has changed colour:

 

Pheosia rimosa (Lep.: Notodontidae)  Jeremy Tatum