At the organic gardening class at Pat's CSA farm last Friday I found a tomato hornworm (caterpillar) and brought it home to learn more about. Someone said it would pupate into a "hummingbird moth" (one of the clearwing moths), but she's wrong. The tomato hornworm pupates into one of the Sphinx moths. You can tell the difference by the way the stripes are arranged on the caterpillar.
I put him in Kayla's dollar store bug cage and fed him fresh tomato leaves three or four times a day.
... and he grew like Topsy!
Boy do hornworms poop!
Tony says he detests tomato hornworms, but I think they're kinda cute ... doesn't he look like the hookah smoking caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland?
1 comment:
I love him! So pretty with those bright colors! And if you look at that last photo sort of sideways, the head (?) sort of looks like a parrot, if you can imagine that!
Brenda
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