2025 August 23
Here are six photographs by Ian Cooper. All were taken on August 21 by the ^E&N trail and #near the 9 km marker of the GG trail in View Royal that evening.
In the first photograph, the termite is a Pacific Dampwood Termite Zootermopsis angusticollis (Blattodea: Archotermopsidae). The spider is a linyphiid – possibly Neriene litigiosa, although this is not certain at present.
#Spider and termite Ian Cooper
In the photograph below, the victim is probably a small crane fly (Dip.: Tipulidae), and the bug is probably a damsel bug (Hem.: Nabidae).
#Fly and bug Ian Cooper
^Unidentified ichneumonoid (Hym.: Ichneumonoidea) Ian Cooper
^Aerial yellowjacket wasp Dolichovespula arenaria
(Hym.: Vespidae)
Ian Cooper
#Emmelina monodactyla (Lep.: Pterophoridae) Ian Cooper
The moth below is a noctuid of the genus Abagrotis. We are not certain of its exact identity at species level, although it does bear some resemblance to A. variata.
#Abagrotis sp. (Lep.: Noctuidae) Ian Cooper
Jeremy Tatum photographed the moth below at his Saanich apartment on August 22.
Lesser Yellow Underwing Noctua comes (Lep.: Noctuidae)
Jeremy Tatum
Ann Tiplady found this katydid in the kitchen of her home in Oak Bay on August 22.
Meconema thalassinum (Orth.: Tettigoniidae) Ann Tiplady
Jeff Gaskin writes that on August 22, there was a Black Saddlebags at the Summit Park reservoir, and in the evening there were a number of Paddle-tailed Darners at King’s Pond.
Colias Alert ! Gordon Hart writes: On August 23, during the VNHS field trip to Whiffen Spit, we had two sightings of a Western Sulphur Colias occidentalis butterfly. I have photos of one in the meadow halfway along (where we saw the American Lady years ago), and later Ben van Drimmelen and I saw another flying near the parking lot. It landed in a patch of grass and gumweed, but we were unable to relocate it. It flew from the direction of the parking lot, so may have been a second one, or the other may have made its way to that area by the time we got there.
Western Sulphur Colias occidentalis (Lep.: Pieridae) Gordon Hart
Invert Sightings 