2018 August 23

 

   Bryan Gates writes:  At least two of these in my beach-side garden, Saratoga Beach, Black Creek, yesterday afternoon.   Jeremy Tatum adds:  Larval foodplant – Stinging Nettle.

 

Udea profundalis (Lep.: Crambidae)  Bryan Gates

 

    Jeremy Tatum:  Below is a photograph of Heliothis phloxiphaga.  This is one of the pale sandy-coloured day-flying moths that one often sees flying over the dunes at Island View Beach and Cordova/Saanichton Spit.  Larval foodplant – Gumweed.   While I was there this morning, I saw a few Ringlets (Large Heaths) and Woodland Skippers  – but no Branded Skippers or Purplish Coppers.

 

Heliothis phloxiphaga (Lep.: Noctuidae)  Jeremy Tatum

 

  Jeremy continues:  I am sure that viewers will have noticed the many silken webs of the Fall Webworm Hyphantria cunea on the trees this year.  There is a particularly spectacular one at the north end of Fowler Park, in which a Black Hawthorn is totally engulfed.  It would make a spectacular photograph for someone.  My own camera isn’t set up for that sort of thing.   Fowler Park is just a tiny area at the north end of Cordova Bay Road, just south of Sayward Road.  The caterpillars are of the genuine woolly bear type.  The adult moth is totally white.  They are not at all related to the tent caterpillars that we see in Spring.

 

   Scott Gilmore writes:    I found a very interesting 4mm long beetle sitting on my car windscreen as I was about to drive away from home yesterday. After looking into it a bit I was able to identify it as Peltodytes callosus – a member of the family Haliplidae, commonly called the Crawling Water Beetles.  It is the first time I have found this family and normally you would expect to find it in water and not on your car, so this one must have been on the move.

 

Peltodytes callosus (Col.: Haliplidae) Scott Gilmore