Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Hornworm

Another great mimic in the garden! Can you find the hornworn on our tomato plant in the photo above? It blends right in. I knew we had at least one because the leaves were starting to disappear on one plant. Finally, I found the chubby, well-fed culprit. "OK," I told it, "you can stay as long as you leave me the tomatoes." Which it does. 

I'd assumed it was a tomato hornworm. Not. It's a tobacco hornworm, which morphs into a Carolina sphinx (Manduca sexta). The true tomato hornworm is the larva of the five-spotted hawkmoth (Manduca quinquemaculatus).

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