2015 June 3

            Jeremy Tatum writes:  I still have a bit of a backlog, so some submissions won’t get posted immediately, but I should get them done in a day or two.  If I appear to have overlooked any, let me know.

            In the meantime:  Adam Taylor has recovered all the archival Invert Alerts for us.  If you scroll to the very bottom of this file you will find a set of numbers 1 2 3 4 5….  Press the last number (which at the moment is 5).  This will take you back to June 2014, and then at the very bottom again you will find links to all the earlier Invert Alerts going back to March 2010, when the Invert Alerts started.  There is also an Index to pictures there, which is out-of-date at the moment, but we hope soon to update it and keep it updated.  Thank you, Adam!

            On May 24 Aziza Cooper photographed a moth on Trial Island whose identification beat me.  Thanks to Libby Avis for identifying it as Eupithecia cretaceata – one of the largest of the pugs, whose caterpillar feeds on the poisonsous (to us) plant Veratrum viride.

Eupitheca cretaceata (Lep.: Geometridae)  Aziza Cooper

   Annie Pang writes:  I was just blown away at the size of the pollen sacs on these Bombus vosnesenskii females at Gorge Park in Victoria today (June 3rd).  The clover patch is going to seed and I will be very sorry to see it gone, but there are still a number of viable flowers and these ladies are making the most of them.   This Bombus species is quite dominant in the park this year, and yet I really don’t recall ever seeing it prior to this year.

Bombus vosnesenskii (Hym.: Apidae)  Annie Pang

 

Bombus vosnesenskii (Hym.: Apidae)  Annie Pang

   Jeremy Tatum writes:  Here is a caterpillar of the Western Brown Elfin on Salal.  The moth below that emerged today from a pupa dug up in a Victoria garden a few weeks ago.    And then a Western Tiger Swallowtail, recently emerged from its chrysalis.  Photographed indoors, I’m afraid, but the butterfly is now flying happily with others on Mount Tolmie.  I saw (but didn’t photograph) my first Lorquin’s Admiral of the year today, at UVic.

Western Brown Elfin Incisalia iroides (Lep.: Lycaenidae)

Jeremy Tatum

 Western Tiger Swallowtail Papilio rutulus (Lep.: Papilionidae)  Jeremy Tatum