Last week, an NJMC colleague brought in this larva, which had been chowing down in his garden.
Anybody (say, a gardener) want to try an ID? It was eating the plant pictured, which had a little purple flower attached.
A little too long to be an inchworm. :- ) (See below.)
That’s an inch and three eighths worm.
I would say it looks to be some type of cutworm perhaps black?? They have a habit of wrapping themselves around foliage and even a whole tomato stem and cutting your plant right down.
looks like a Eutrapela clemataria caterpillar. definitely an “inchworm” (i see what u did there….) aka geometrid caterpillar based on legs. can’t say for sure because i am not at all familiar with my leps, also the photos are blurry (did magoo take the photos?)! but the orange dots seem to match. see here:
http://bugguide.net/node/view/475
http://somethingscrawlinginmyhair.com/2010/12/18/purplish-brown-looper/
maybe Eutrapela clemataria