Tobacco Horn Worm Attacks!
August 4th, 2008Updated June 4, 2012: Thanks to Bart to correctly identifying as Tobacco Horn Worm. Text corrected
I was out in my garden, and I noticed that a few of my tomato plants were nearly stripped bare of their leaves. I had noticed a few branches like this the other day, but couldn’t find the perpetrator. Well, I finally found the bugger — a rather large tobacco horn worm
Stripped tomato branch
Rather than simply plucking the large caterpillar from the vine, and “removing” him from my garden, I had to do a photo shoot with him first. I’ve been quite fortunate in the past to not have to deal with many of these worms, and the ones I did were usually invaded by wasp parasites.
Tobacco Horn Worm, backend
I didn’t realize at first that the horned part of the caterpillar is not their head. They have some incredibly convincing eye spots and markings to make it appear like they’re something you don’t want to mess with.
In fact, their head is the other end, which is much less intimating. They’ve got three sets of legs or feelers up front that help them to navigate the branches of my poor tomato plants.
Tobacco Horn Worm, full body shot
Overall, their body stripes and coloration really make these attractive creatures. This particular fellow did a number on 2-3 of my tomato vines, but I’m hoping that they’ll rebound, despite already being a little bit behind this year. Does anyone else have any experience with the horn worms, and know how to keep them away in the future?
August 4th, 2008 at 10:53 am
Horn worm — sounds like some magical creature that Hagrid smuggled into Hogwarts. 🙂
August 4th, 2008 at 10:58 am
Um, yeah, it is. Just like my magic bean plants, which I’ll climb into the clouds!
August 4th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
I don’t think they are a bad thing. Here’s one I found a few weeks ago: http://www.tennessee-mom.com/archives/862
They don’t eat too much, I’m sure something will come along and find it a tasty snack… or use it for a home like mine.
August 4th, 2008 at 6:50 pm
btw that horn does make you think twice about going near it, does it? Great pictures, too!
August 5th, 2008 at 5:16 am
They look terrifying blown up like that.
August 5th, 2008 at 5:34 am
[…] we still have a number of tomatoes forming, so hopefully they’ll come around eventually; horn worms not withstanding. Unripe […]
August 5th, 2008 at 5:51 am
Kim, your picture is great. Unfortunately, the guy in my garden wasn’t impeded by wasp eggs, so he really did make a mess of some of my tomato plants. Thanks for the comments!
August 7th, 2008 at 10:01 am
Great shots – all of those little eye spots are really something.
January 19th, 2009 at 10:46 pm
We have a LOT of experience with the buggars! Florida is their vacation spot (like everyone else’s) so we seem to have more than our share. 🙂 Our children pick them off and throw them in the pond… unfortunately, our fish don’t like to eat them and they can swim! So now we give them over to the executioner (3 year old) who takes care of them before tossing to the fishies. Good luck! Don’t give them an inch! They’ll eat a mile’s worth of tomatoes.
January 19th, 2009 at 11:10 pm
Thanks for the comment Allie. I definitely found out the hard way what they can do to tomatoes. We had one of our worst years ever this past year for tomatoes, partly due to the worm.
June 28th, 2009 at 11:36 pm
I just found one of these horrific creatures on one of my tomato plants. It was a sight to see. I definitely was not going to touch it, so I hit it several times with a garden home until I knocked him off. Then I kicked him far away from my plants.
Hope PETA doesn’t harass me…..
July 12th, 2010 at 12:11 am
This afternoon I picked peppers and everything was well. This evening I went to water and found two pepper plants almost totally denuded. They even ate a hot pepper. They did not touch the tomato plants. I put them (3) in a bucket with tomato leaves that I pruned and will wait for the wasps to finish them off.
July 18th, 2010 at 1:59 pm
i had the same problem this morning. yesterday, my tomato plats were florishing. this morning, al of the leaves were stripped bare and 10 to 15 of the horn worms were starting to eat my eggplats.
September 22nd, 2010 at 11:29 am
Has anyone ever had these worms strip their Penta plants, (flowers)? Earlier in the season they stripped them in one day. The plants rebounded.
This morning I looked out and they are back. So faar have picked 8/9 off the plants. They are green and brown. Are these the same worms? What kills them.
May 29th, 2012 at 10:58 pm
Wow they can get REALLY big. I found one just now and my dauther cut off the tail. It looked like it was poison in there……
June 2nd, 2012 at 3:49 pm
You have the wrong species! The caterpillar in the photos is a tobacco hornworm, not a tomato hornworm.
See for example, http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/field/hornworm.htm
June 4th, 2012 at 3:11 pm
Thanks for the proper ID, Bart! I’ve corrected the references in this post.