I suppose it was just a matter of time before I met you, Mr. Tomato Hornworm.
This guy was alarmingly huge! When I first spotted him on the top of the tomato plant he was fighting with a fly. No lie! He was rearing up like a giant green monster & flailing about to shoo a fly away who was persistently annoying him. The fly finally won and landed on his back. It may have been my imagination but the Tomato Hornworm seemed annoyed & defeated. My bug collector Michael refused to even consider plucking him off. So in the end it was me who cut off a branch to put him inside a pickle jar. We kept him over night and the next day he was dead. We prodded him a little and touched him and he didn't move at all. He seemed a goner. We wondered why? He had his beloved tomato branch to munch on.
So, we took him outside to our bird basket. We have a hanging basket in our front yard where we place food for the birds. In the morning the birds come to pick out the sunflower seeds or stale peanuts that are gifted them. We thought this day we'd give them quite a treat. After a couple of hours we went to check on him and see if he was gone. There he was alive and well and munching away on his branch. The next morning he and his branch were gone. I assume he made a fat & delicious meal for some lucky bird.
So dear Mr. Hornworm, we are sorry it had to end this way. We were very impressed with your smarts but hope to never again spot your kind in our garden. If we do... he will certainly befall a similar fate.
Until next time...
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Glad you found him! Keep your eyes open, where there is one there is often more. Who knows, she could have been a mama!?
ReplyDeleteUgh perish the thought! I've been checking but haven't found any more. We shall see.
DeleteOhhhhhh yes the hornworm thing.
ReplyDeleteI found 3 in my tomato plants this summer. I found the first one thinking that was it, but was surprised by the great amount of damage he/she had done to the vegetation.
We plopped him in a fairly large aquarium with tons of soil and some petunias (apparently they eat those too.)
But then the next day I found two more.
So we plopped them in. Kind of fascinating to watch them crawl around and munch away.
2 buried themselves and one didn't quite make it.
A few weeks ago that one turned out to be a huge, amazing moth. Brown with crazy patterns.
The other two...... they might not have made it. We might need to hold a caterpillar funeral. :)
Love your blog btw.
They are fascinating to watch aren't they.
DeleteUgh! We just found many (out-of-the-blue) on our tomato plants! Many had parasitic wasp eggs on them though (which I didn't mind seeing!) Luckily, it's time for us to pull up our plants, so they didn't have time to do much damage!
ReplyDeleteI've been seeing wasps quite a bit in the garden area. Perhaps we have some eggs as well. I've heard it's good to let them hatch & then the wasps will keep vigil. Love it when nature helps!
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