That's the caterpillar form of the Cabbage White butterfly - those "pretty" white butterflies that are flitting around all summer. They're the WORST!
I had eight of them in my little 2'x8' raised herb bed recently - managed to catch two barehanded (let's just say they met the bottom of my shoe). For as much time as they seem to spend plunking their little butterfly butts down on my plants, they can take off in a hurry when they see a hand coming at them. And I'm sure my neighbors have seen me doing an odd dance as I try to catch them in the yard.
If you've got any sort of brassicas (broccoli, cauliflower, Brussle sprouts), Asian greens, or other leafy veggies, look on the leaves and I bet you'll find the TINIEST little yellow dot. A closer inspection will show it's not a dot flush with the leaf surface, but more like a tiny pale barrel sticking out from the leaf's surface. Just run your finger across it and you'll crush it.
Each of those little yellow barrels is going to be one of these green caterpillars, and they blend in REAL WELL with the leaves of the stuff they love to eat. In a brief (10 min or less?) spell in the garden recently, I pulled at least thirty off my broccoli plants, all different sizes, but none more than an inch long. This was the first pass I really made to clean off the broccoli - follow-up visits to clean the plants have worms have had considerably fewer each visit, but they're still there. You really know you've got them because new leaves are still getting chewed up, and sometimes pooped on.
I'll tell you who does love these green caterpillars - the fish in the pond out back. ;-)
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