2015 August 12

   The season seems to be drawing rapidly to a close for most butterflies – with the exception of the Woodland Skipper.  There are lots of these around.  Jeremy Tatum noted clouds of them flitting around thistle and burdock flowers at UVic yesterday.  Today Anne Murray writes from Saturna Island (a welcome contribution – we get few reports from there): There are suddenly dozens of these little butterflies around our lavender flowers on Saturna Island. Am I correct in identifying them as Woodland Skippers?  [Yes, you are!  –  Jeremy]  I am trying to attract native butterflies to our garden here. Any suggestions for other good larval/nectar plants would be most helpful. [I’ll try and reply sometime.  In the meantime, Lavender is as good a nectaring flower as any (see postings of July 23 and July 30 for association of this butterfly with Lavender) – though I’ll have some other suggestions later – and the foodplant of the Woodland Skipper caterpillars is grass!  They are probably not all that particular as to species of grass, though I haven’t investigated that at length.]    And Rosemary Jorna sends a photograph of an adult from near Kemp Lake.  The “Woodland” in its English name is merely a translation of its Latin name sylvanoides.  The butterfly can be seen in almost any habitat other than woodland!

Woodland Skipper Ochlodes sylvanoides (Lep.: Hesperiidae)  Rosemary Jorna

   Rosemary sends several other photographs of insects and spiders.  We show some of them here. We are still trying to identify some of the others before posting them.  If any viewer can identify those below that are incompletely identified, please do let us know.

Ants (Hym.:  Formicidae) on Tansy       Rosemary Jorna

Bumble bee Bombus sp. (Hym.: Apidae)  Rosemary Jorna

Bumble bee Bombus sp. (Hym.: Apidae)  Rosemary Jorna

Garden Spider Araneus diadematus (Ara.: Aranaeidae)  Rosemary Jorna

Crab spider Misumena vatia (Ara.: Thomisiidae)  Rosemary Jorna

Thanks to Scott Gilmore for identifying the beetle below.

Megapenthes sp. (Col.: Elateridae)  Rosemary Jorna

   Scott Gilmore sends photographs of a moth caterpillar and two beetles from Upper Lantzville.

American Lappet Moth 

Phyllodesma americana (Lep.: Lasiocampidae)

Scott Gilmore

American Lappet Moth 

Phyllodesma americana (Lep.: Lasiocampidae)

Scott Gilmore

American Lappet Moth 

Phyllodesma americana (Lep.: Lasiocampidae)

Scott Gilmore

Uloma longula (Col,: Tenebrionidae)  Scott Gilmore

Black Vine Weevil  Otiorhynchus sulcatus (Col.: Curculionidae)

Scott Gilmore

   Jeremy Tatum reports a Lorquin’s Admiral today from Bow Park, Saanich.