Those things eat our tomato plants if we aren't careful. Is it a hornworm?
They change into some type of moth, whose name escapes me, even though it's very common....now I won't be able to sleep tonight until I think of it :-(
I wouldn't say it's harmless. They eat innocent tomato plants, and they're even scary to kill (we kids used to go out in bands of at least two or three to hunt them down). Keep a stick with you so you don't have to flick them off with your bare hands.
I did some research (aka Google Images) and discovered it is not exactly the tomato worm (that's what we called them when I was growing up and working in the garden and I thought they were scary too). The tomato hornworm must be a near relative, but the design on this guy is slightly different. The best I could come up with for this creature is white lined sphinx moth caterpillar.
Now you're making me hungry for some homegrown tomatos. Not much will grow in my backyard--one inch of soil on top of a foot of white chalk.
And now that we've established it's not the tomato worm, I remembered (lying in bed) that if it WERE the tomato worm, it would turn into a hawk moth, later.
Of course, it makes no difference, now....but at least I feel better, having remembered.
5 comments:
Wow, good shot.
Those things eat our tomato plants if we aren't careful. Is it a hornworm?
They change into some type of moth, whose name escapes me, even though it's very common....now I won't be able to sleep tonight until I think of it :-(
I wouldn't say it's harmless. They eat innocent tomato plants, and they're even scary to kill (we kids used to go out in bands of at least two or three to hunt them down). Keep a stick with you so you don't have to flick them off with your bare hands.
I did some research (aka Google Images) and discovered it is not exactly the tomato worm (that's what we called them when I was growing up and working in the garden and I thought they were scary too). The tomato hornworm must be a near relative, but the design on this guy is slightly different. The best I could come up with for this creature is white lined sphinx moth caterpillar.
Now you're making me hungry for some homegrown tomatos. Not much will grow in my backyard--one inch of soil on top of a foot of white chalk.
And now that we've established it's not the tomato worm, I remembered (lying in bed) that if it WERE the tomato worm, it would turn into a hawk moth, later.
Of course, it makes no difference, now....but at least I feel better, having remembered.
And if it were a tomato worm, that would also indicate that I had some tomato plants, which sadly, I don't.
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