(n.) One of numerous genera and species of moths, of the family Geometridae; -- so called because their larvae (called loopers, measuring worms, spanworms, and inchworms) creep in a looping manner, as if measuring. Many of the species are injurious to agriculture, as the cankerworms.
Example Sentences:
(1) The British comma butterfly has moved 137 miles northward in the past two decades, while geometrid moths on Mount Kinabalu in Borneo have shifted uphill by 59 metres in 42 years.
(2) This is one of the first examples where a definite chemical substance is active for a geometrid species.
(3) By testing this compound in woods and orchards, we have found that it was also selectively attractive for males of a geometrid moth; Sterrha biselata.
(4) Telenomus alsophilae, a parasite of the eggs of the geometrid Alsophila pometaria in North America, was introduced into Columbia, South America, for the biological control of a pest host in another genus, Oxydia trychiata.
Spanworm
Definition:
(n.) The larva of any geometrid moth, as the cankeworm; a geometer; a measuring worm.