Gabriola dyari
What do you know? There’s a Gabriola insect. (And no, I’m not talking about that creepy guy at the pub.) On the Natural Resources Canada site, Gabriola dyari is listed as a conifer-defoliator:
Hosts: The principal hosts of Gabriola dyari are western hemlock and Douglas-fir; other hosts include western red cedar, amabilis fir, grand fir, subalpine fir, Engelmann spruce and mountain hemlock.
Distribution This species is generally distributed throughout British Columbia from the Nass and upper Fraser drainages south; it also occurs south to Oregon.
I want to know why this insect bears the name of our island. Was it discovered here? Alas, I’ve not found any details about the history of the insect’s name. I guess it’s too much to expect that entomologists would care about etymology, too.
(Edit: The page from which I quoted above is no longer on the Natural Resources Canada website. Alas!)
- Species Gabriola dyari – bugguide.net
- images of Gabriola dyari – Canadian Biodiversity Information Facility
- Flickr images of Gabriola Dyari
- Gabriola Dyari on Google Images
- Gabriola Dyari – davesgarden.com
- Gabriola dyari – mothphotographersgroup.msstate.edu
Filed in Gabriola Island,insects 2 Comments so far
2 Responses to “Gabriola dyari”
Andrea on 21 Jun 2009 at 9:10 am #
Actually, entomologists and other biologists who name species most definitely care about etymology! There are all kinds of rules about the naming of species, and although it is not actually required it is very strongly encouraged that the name have some connection with the place where the species occurs, or something about its appearance, etc. I am not an entomologist but I am a biologist so when I read this on your blog a few months ago I filed it away mentally as something to chase down when I got a chance. I can now tell you that Gabriola Island is indeed the place where the Gabriola moth was first discovered. This is called the “type locality”, so somewhere in the world (and I would guess very likely in the museum in Victoria or else the national museum in Ottawa, the first specimen or specimens of this moth collected on Gabriola, which were the ones used to initially describe the size, shape and other characteristics of the species, are filed away as the archetype of the species. The original collector and describer was one George Taylor, and in 1904 he published the species description in a scientific journal called Canadian Entomologist. You can find some info about his life here – he was also the first curator of the DFO lab in Nanaimo.
http://www.pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/science/facilities-installations/pbs-sbp/history-historique/taylor-eng.htm
Pretty neat, eh?
Gabriolan on 23 Jun 2009 at 8:47 am #
Oh, Andrea! Thank you so much for this. Your comment made my day.