It is A tomato Hornworm and if you are a tomato plant or a tomato lover he is a really bad critter.

Lovely pictures! Not such a wonderful insect, though. :)

Looks like they're big enough to be near the end of their munching, but rest assured there are small ones to take over. I'd say it's time to think about hornworm control strategies.

--Alison

BT will work, Sevin will work, a BB gun will work, a pair of scissors will work, but do something. That critter can eat half of a plant in one night. Take 'im out!!!

Ugh. Tomato Hornworms. They'll eat your plant and turn into huge moths. I just pick em off and put chili poweder around my plant, keeps em away!

We kinda like the moths they turn into, so since we are lucky enough to live next door to a huge brushfield, we cut off whatever branch we find them on and take them over to the brushfield and heave them as far as we can to give them at least a chance. But if chili powder will keep them off to start with, I'll give that a try. Thanks!

It's a tobacco hornworm. Tomato hornworms have 8 v shaped patterns and a black horn while the tobacco hornworm has 7 diagonal lines on each side and a red horn. Both are tomato pests.

Thanks Taz I was just going to say the same thing. This is definitely a tobacco hornworm, much more common on tomatoes IMO than tomato hornworms (doesn't make sense).

Oh and on the subject of caterpillars I found out recently that yellow striped armyworms will eat green fruit as well as leaves. I used to leave most of them alone cause they don't do much damage.

Does Chili powder really keep them away?

If he likes tomatoes, he must be a good guy.

Great pic!

Bad! these guys devoured my entire plant in no time at all. I would guess that if you have a couple you have more hiding. time looking for them is the best remedy. Good luck.

Tobacco hornworm ... nasty fellow!
One of the best ways to get them is to handpick them and squish them. They're big enough to find. You may have to look hard under leaves because they're well camouflaged.

Here is a link that might be useful: Tomato hornworm and tobacco hornworm

ROFL!!! I've heard they taste like tomatoes... though, I hope I'm never desperate enough to find out.

UGH!!!! I would expect they would taste like tomato leaves.

Betsy

I've got a friend that will eat anything but I wouldn't ask him to try one seeing the plant is actually poisonous to humans.

my neighbor has a butterfly bush that is the host to Hummingbird moths which is what the tomato Hornworm becomes. I hand picked one from my wifes Abraham Lincoln.Later as I was closing down that bed I found a pupai about 4 inches deep. It was dark brown and was very sharply tapered at least one end , maybe both. Just to add a little food for thought , about the same time and shortly after I noticed large slugs began gourging on the actual fruit. I usually see the hornworm eating foilage and stems. johnny

Tobacco Hornworms (Manduca sexta) are usually found on tomatoe plants East of the Rockies, and Tomato Hornworms are found more frequently West of the Rockies. However, I occasionally find a Tomato Hornworm on my plants, too, just not as much.

I grow Datura, also in the Solanaceae family same as Tomatoes (Lycopersicon), which they will also eat, and I just move mine to the Datura, which is a huge plant.

I love the beautiful sphinx moths they morph into, and these moths are important pollinators, especially of deep throated flowers, which other insects have difficulty reaching. Their proboscis is 4-7" long. There are tropical sphinx moths that have a 12" proboscis!

Also, Tobacco Hornworms generally do have a red horn, but I have also seen them with yellow horns, too.

Susan

Thank you susasnlynne . I will have to look at my horn worms a little closer next summer.I have not seen any sphinx moths , only humming bird moths. I will be watching next summer. Johnny

I always thought the hummingbird moths were cool. Never knew
they were the tomato horn worm. The worms are still dead meat
when I see them. Only found 2 this summer. One on a pepper and
the other on a tomato. I get mostly these smaller black worms on
my tomatoes.
Anybody know what this worm is on my Datura?

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Hummingbird moths are also sphinx moths, but the ones generally called that are the dayflying sphinx moths that nectar on flowers (or rotting fruit if available), like the Snowberry Clearwing that resembles a large bumblebee, and the Nessus sphinx that is a beautiful reddish brown with two cream colored stripes across the lower abdomen. Few of the sphinx fly during the day, and most are nocturnal, as is the Tomato and Tobacco Hornworm moths. You can generally spot them at dusk, just as light is beginning to wane, or in the early morning just before sunrise. The adult moths have 5 yellow spots on either side of their abdomen in the case of the Tomato Hornworm, and 6 spots of yellow in the case of the Tobacco Hornworm moth. Their wings move just as a Hummingbirds, too, and they hover at flowers like them also. They are fascinating to watch because no other moth family does this. Moths outnumber butterflies by 10 to 1. The tomato and tobacco hornworms use Solanaceous plants for larval food, e.g., tomato, tobacco, pepper, potatoe, Datura, Brugmansia and many more. However, tomato is generally the favored food.

The Tobacco and Tomato Hornworms are large sphinx moths as indicated by the size of the caterpillars. The Hummingbird moths, like the Snowberry and the Nessus, are much smaller. I find larvae of the Snowberry Clearwing on my large honeysuckle vine, and the Nessus on my Virginia Creeper, which hosts a wide variety of various species of sphinx caterpillars. They are very cool to raise.

Hope this may inspire some of you to observe them in the garden. They aren't all bad.

Susan

Here is a link that might be useful: Tobacco and Tomato Hornworms and Adult Moths