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.

April 11

2018 April 11

 

   Jochen Moehr continues to get exciting moths in Metchosin.  Here are a few – there’ll be more to come in the next posting!   Thanks to Libby Avis for help with the identifications.

 

 

Orthosia praeses (Lep.: Noctuidae) Jochen Moehr

Orthosia praeses (Lep.: Noctuidae) Jochen Moehr

Orthosia praeses (Lep.: Noctuidae) Jochen Moehr

Orthosia hibisci (Lep.: Noctuidae) Jochen Moehr

Orthosia hibisci (Lep.: Noctuidae)Jochen Moehr

Orthosia hibisci (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Jochen Moehr

Orthosia hibisci (Lep.: Noctuidae) Jochen Moehr

   Jeremy Tatum writes:  I’m envious – all I could find at the well-lit rear door of my Saanich apartment building this morning was a weevil.

 

Otiorhynchus singularis (Col.: Curculionidae)   Jeremy Tatum

 

Although this site is for terrestrial invertebrates, I couldn’t resist this next one – a marine mite.  I didn’t know there were such things.  It was photographed by John MacFarlane.  Dr Heather Proctor writes:  This is a mesostigmatan.  There are no completely subaquatic mesostigs, so this was probably from the intertidal zone, or possibly got washed into deeper water.  Unfortunately it is a nymph, so I can’t tell what Family it belongs to.

 

Jeremy Tatum writes: Until I have time to work on going through all the mites on this site, for the present I am listing, in the Index, all mites and ticks under the Order Acari.  However, in modern classifications, Acari is a Subclass (or at least something higher than Order).  Parasitiformes might be regarded as an Order within the Acari, and the Mesostigmata as a Suborder within Parasitiformes.

 

Nymphal marine mite (Acari – Parasitiformes – Mesostigmata)

John MacFarlane

   Viewers who are interested in trying their hand at amateur photomicrography, or indeed more experienced photomicrographers, may be interested in a site being designed by Mr MacFarlane for that purpose.  See the Invert Alert entry for March 29, or go to micronaturalist.ca or write to Mr MacFarlane at:   microscope at shaw dot ca    for more details.  It sounds interesting.