Lurking under the tomato leaves is every gardner's worst enemy. Cloaked in green corpulence, it is not easily spotted except for the tell-tale signs of excess frass and stripped leaves. Manduca quinquemaculata strikes again! Otherwise known as: the tomato hornworm.
Generally, those of us of the gardening persuasion feel they deserve a fate of squishing, stomping, or drowning. However, being homeschoolers as well, we had to satiate our curiosity and investigate. What do these voracious caterpillars turn into?
So we saved one (just one...the others...not so lucky) and put it in a gallon jar with a judicious amount of potato foliage that had sprouted in the compost pile, a layer of soil, and a spritz or two of water. Apparently, the tomato hornworm will feed on any of the nightshades such as eggplant, pepper, potato, and of course tomato. It is amazing the amount of leaves this caterpillar would go through in one day! After around three days or so of feeding, it mysteriously disappeared!
Further research revealed that it had burrowed in the soil to pupate.
This happened in June. The jar was put on a shelf in Big T's room and subsequently forgotten.
A few nights ago, Big T heard something making a flapping sound in his room. When he turned the light on the flapping sound stopped. Then it returned when he switched the light back off. Freaky! Finally, he located the sound...it was coming from the forgotten jar!
Here is the large beauty that had emerged from the soil:
A fine specimen of what is commonly called a sphinx moth. The picture doesn't capture the beautiful pinkish-orange markings on the abdomen and lower wings.
All in all it was a very interesting observation project. We learned quite a bit about the Manduca quinquemaculata, its habits and life cycle.
Know thine enemy.
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