Look closely and do a leg count. At least 7 abdominal segments have legs, ruling out a moth or butterfly caterpillar.

Your crawler has the appearance of a sawfly larva. Dogwood sawfly larva are white with black head and yellow underneath. The black spotting is variable, some are pure white. It could be a different species of sawfly larva also.

Thanks very much for the response. Unfortunately the critter has moved on. I do have both shrub (Cornus sericea âÂÂKelseyi') and tree (C. florida 'Cherokee Princess') dogwoods nearby. But, I found no obvious damage on the plants, not to say that it couldn't have come from one of them. I googled dogwood sawfly and there were several images that were very similar - I think that your ID is likely correct. Thanks again.

larry_gene, you were absolutely correct. Yesterday I removed some tree seedlings that were hidden in the middle of a redtwig dogwood, chopped them up and put them in the dumpster, adjacent to the spot where I took the first picture. It occurred to me to look at my redtwig, some 150' away from the dumpster, and voila! Here is what I found (sorry about the fuzzy pic). Thanks again for the lead.

You're welcome. Typical sawfly damage. There are lots of sawfly larvae out there posing as caterpillars.