sabinalucke's Favorites

I observed this camouflaged Looper caterpillar on a California Buckwheat flower. The first photo seems to be just a California Buckwheat, but a closer look shows the Synchlora aerata caterpillar camouflaged with California Buckwheat flowers at the top of the flower. The last two photos show why this caterpillar is referred to as the Camouflaged Looper caterpillar.

"These caterpillars of the Wavy-lined Emerald moth disguise themselves with their own camouflage from the plants they feed on. Their Pupa also use plant pieces as camouflage for part of its cocoon.

Looper Caterpillars are members of a large family of moths known as geometrids. The name geometrid derives from Greek roots meaning earth measurer. Another common name for geometrid caterpillars is inchworms, and as loopers and inchworms move along, they do appear to measure the earth inch by inch. Camouflaged loopers eat many types of flowers including ageratum, aster, black-eyed Susan, boneset, daisy, goldenrod, ragweed, raspberry, rose, sage, St. John’s wort, and yarrow. The adult moth of this camouflaged looper is known as the Wavy-lined Emerald."