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Ordinarily I prefer using the common name as the title for the post, but this caterpillar, and the moth it will become, has no common name, and unfortunately “Geometrid Moth Caterpillar” does not narrow it down far enough. Its scientific name is Episemasia cervinaria. For those who follow Hodge nomenclature, this is Hodge #6714. When it grows up it will become a relatively unremarkable soft gray moth.

(I really find it cool that there’s a guy out there, somewhere, just taking moth photos as a hobby, and he’s gotten so good at it and so thorough in his documentation that other entomologists are using his numbering system to identify moths. Go Greg!)

The geometrid moths include looper moths, like this one, whose caterpillars move like inchworms and form “loops” with their bodies as they move (they also lack legs in the center of their bodies).

This little fellow was really bookin’ it — most of my photos were blurred! This photo caught his front end nicely, though.

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