Tomato Hornworm

Hello all!

So The Bosses and I found this thing when I was trying to figure out why my plum tomato plant looked so awful way back when.

At first we thought it was a disease that was killing the plant, but then we found the evidence below.

Their poop looks like little grenades. This guy had plenty of food to process too! He ate half a tomato and a very good amount of my plant. This is surprising to me because I've seen so many predatory wasps flying around who would otherwise parasitise this fat blob.

Below, a picture (provided by the University of Minesota) of what the caterpillar would look like if it was parasitised:

If you see the caterpillar like this, it is suggested you let it live! This way, the little wasps eat him alive and you have more of these beneficial insects to parasitise more hornworms. Furthermore, lady beetles and green lacewings love munching on their eggs - which are smooth, oval shaped light green eggs which (I've been told) are laid on the underside of tomato leaves.

I decided to keep this guy as a pet, by the way. He had an entire bucket and spare cherry tomato plant to himself (seen below).

However, the idiot ran away. He didn't know how good he had it. Boss told me when they do pupate, they burrow underground (which is a good reason why you should till your soil). However, when I completely dumped the bucket and sifted through the dirt, I found nothing! So he either ran away to a better host (as if one exists...) or was eaten by an eagle. I sincerely hope for the latter.

PS: I would also like to refer you to a post I made a long time ago when I freaked out about a moth that I thought was eating my plants, but was in fact just laying the seeds that would in fact grow fulfill my greatest fears. Below, what the moth actually looks like:

Source:

http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/horticulture/M1224.html

~ jesusnunezx