Caterpillar floating in river 
Rescued caterpillars on my legs
I wrote this to "Ask an Entomologist:"
"Last week when I was kayaking on the Multnomah Channel of the Willamette River in Portland, I paddled alongside a small orange/black fuzzy caterpillar with a bit of white fuzz on top and I rescued it -- eventually setting it on the dirt in a planter on my houseboat. Paddling a week later, I saw another caterpillar and rescued it. After five of these, and seeing that none of the caterpillars was dead I figured, silly me, they must belong in the river. I then noticed that about every five feet there was one or more of these caterpillars floating, and seeming to be "eating." I eventually pulled over and put my five "rescued" ones back on land, still hesitant to leave them in the water. I also realized later that I only saw these caterpillars along about one mile of the six I paddled. I was near shore the whole time. I can't find any info about them myself online. Can you help? I would like to add an entry to my blog, My Riverhouse Life, that I will call "The Absurdity of River Caterpillar Rescue."
I wrote to a website called www.allexperts.com. I was given a choice of half a dozen or more entomologists and I chose one. I immediately got an email saying that "most of our questions are answered in 3 days." However, less than an hour later, I got another email with a link to the answer. Eric R. Eaton is the entomologist. He's the author of the "Kaufman Field Guide to Insects of North America" and has a blog at http://bugeric.blogspot.com.
He correctly identified this caterpillar as a Ranchman's Tiger Moth, Platyprepia virginalis. He sent this link http://bugguide.net/node/view/381614 with photos (that exactly matched mine) and more information
... along with this note:
"I grew up in Oregon and found the adult moths frequently associated with wetlands, so it makes sense the caterpillars would be found in the same situation, though why they were actually in the river is kind of a mystery. Maybe they blew off the host plant or something."
"I grew up in Oregon and found the adult moths frequently associated with wetlands, so it makes sense the caterpillars would be found in the same situation, though why they were actually in the river is kind of a mystery. Maybe they blew off the host plant or something."
I will now do more research on my own to see if I can find out why the moths were in the river swimming.
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