Friday, August 6, 2010

PESKY CATERPILLAR

Tomato Hornworm--3-4 inch long green caterpillar
with diagonal lines on sides, prominent horn on
rear end. Eat foliage and may take bites out of
green fruit. They are the larvae of 2 large moths:
the Hawk moth and the Sphinx moth and over winter
in the soil in the pupal stage. Adult moths appear in
late spring and lay single, pearl colored eggs on the
undersides of plant leaves that hatch in about a
week. Larvae feed on foliage for about a month before
they enter the soil and pupate.

As you can see from this picture the caterpillar
ate a lot of the leaves off this tomato plant before
we discovered the pesky large green caterpillar.

4 comments:

Deann said...

After more research, I think it is a Tobacco Hornworm instead of a Tomato Hornworm. Apparently you can tell the difference by the color of the horn and the number of white stripes it has. Pretty neat, either way!

Packrat said...

You have worms on your tomatoes. I have aphids sucking the life out of mine. UGH.

Your pool looks lovely and so inviting.

Anonymous said...

Yuk! Those distructive little guys look nasty! Apparently they have been having a party in your tomato patch. I have such bad luck growing vegetables that I turned my garden into flowers instead. One year, within a two day period, our bunny population cleaned us out. They ate everything! Your pool does look sooo inviting :>)

Ms Bingles Vintage Christmas said...

Oh, your blog is so cute!
I am glad I came across it!
Have a good evening!
Leticia