Karl Leopold Escherich (18 September 1871 – 22 November 1951) was a German entomologist and professor of zoology.
After gaining his postdoctoral qualification in Strasbourg in 1901, he received a professorship at the Department of Forest Zoology in Tharandt in 1907, which had been orphaned since the death of Hinrich Nitsche.
In 1914 he joined the Chair of Applied Zoology at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich, where he succeeded August Pauly.
After a 1911 trip to the United States, he conceived a plan to redesign applied entomology in Germany after the American model.
Karl Escherich was one of the few forestry academics who took part in the early Hitler movement of the inflation period.