Yesterday birding girl found this caterpillar feeding on my tomato plants in the planters on my deck (because if I tried to have a garden at ground level the groundhogs, rabbits and deer would take over).

I have determined to identify him as a tomato hornworm, although at first we thought a Wild Cherry Sphinx Moth larvae and I am not completely convinced yet that it is not. But the real question was the affliction! What's that white stuff you ask? Well, we looked that up too and they are cucoons of the Braconid Wasp.
Unfortunately for this little fellow, everything I read says that he will die. He will never reach the moth stage. Good I suppose if you're a farmer. Indeed many farmers buy quantities of the wasp to control the population of Tomato or Tobacco Hornworms. Me? With six tomato plants it's just as easy to pick them off. Birding girl wants to destroy all the larvae before they become wasps. I would like to try and save this little guys life ... however silly the "real" farmers out there think this is.
The photo in the exteded entry shows the "hook" a little better.

Posted by sunybank at September 1, 2007 03:56 PM