My Favorite Tomato Horn Worm
Sorry for the blur in the photo. My old skool digital camera is not all that good for close-up work. I'd like to thank the Braconid wasp for doing the heavy lifting on this one.
Check out this post at Fragments From Floyd for another look and a better explanantion (better - heck, an explanation period) of how the tomato plant deals with the horn worms.
My new friend here is unable to crawl out of the jar he's in and I aim to watch the wasp larvae do their thing. Knock yourselves out, lads. And then go out into the world to spread joy amongst all who would grow the tomato.
I see that I am actually dealing with a tobacco horn worm as the tomato horn worm, per se, has a blue-black horn and all mine have had red horns. Not that it matters as the only thing I have that they want is tomato plants. By the way, do visit the link as there is an insane comment from a "susan" who wants "share" the plant foliage which she doesn't eat. Oh fer hippieness! I could forgive it if she were a lady vampire.
UPDATE: I found one more THW avec pupae. Heh. That brings the total to 17 and now I'm almost sorry I didn't leave more for the wasps. Actually, the second one I found (they're much easier to spot when bristling with white cocoons) was bigger than the one i photographed. I left them both out on the deck in a jar. I'll take more pictures tomorrow. This is getting to be fun.