Christine has a couple of tomato plants out back and recently, over a couple of days, the plants became about 30% defoliated. The culprit was
Manduca quinquemaculata or the Tomato Hornworm. Ultimately it makes a beautiful Hawk moth, but it takes a lot of Solanaceous leaves to accomplish that goal. If you have never had the pleasure of seeing one of these things...they have mass. This one was about 4 inches long and maybe an inch around.
Look at those little appendages designed for shredding tomato leaves :-)
Christine has a couple of tomato plants out back and recently, over a couple of days, the plants became about 30% defoliated. The culprit was Manduca quinquemaculata or the Tomato Hornworm. Ultimately it makes a beautiful Hawk moth, but it takes a lot of Solanaceous leaves to accomplish that goal. If you have never had the pleasure of seeing one of these things...they have mass. This one was about 4 inches long and maybe an inch around.
Look at those little appendages designed for shredding tomato leaves :-)
4 comments:
Since you are the go to guy for this type of ??. I have a question regarding something I had heard. I live in CT. My mom found a tomato worm on her plant that was covered in eggs. I was told these were wasp eggs, and when they hatched they would eat the worm. Does that sound correct, do wasps really lay their eggs on poor unsuspecting caterpillars to provide food for their unhatched eggs?? Too weird. thanks!
Hi Amber,
yes you are correct, these are wasps that belong to the Braconidae family...this particular group of parasitic wasps have been a great source of biological controls
there is a good picture at: http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/galveston/beneficial4_braconid_wasp_on_hornworm.htm
better link to picture
link to image of tobacco horn worm covered with parasitic wasp cocoons
Ok, I really want to photoshop a pipe onto the last picture of that guy. Looks like something from down the rabbit hole.
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