Leaves on my tomatoe plants seemed to be diappearing. I found 6 big
green catapillers and took them off. What are these? What can I do to
avoid them. Ginny

They are the catapillers of the spynx moth. It's a pretty bug but i would
just continue to pick them off. It's better than using chemicals.


"ginnydudek" wrote in message
oups.com...
Leaves on my tomatoe plants seemed to be diappearing. I found 6 big
green catapillers and took them off. What are these? What can I do to
avoid them. Ginny

In article .com,
ginnydudek wrote:
Leaves on my tomatoe plants seemed to be diappearing. I found 6 big
green catapillers and took them off. What are these? What can I do to
avoid them.

They are tomato horn worms. On a small scale, hand picking is easy. But
if they have little white disks attached to their backs, let them be.
Those are the cocoons of a small parasitic wasp which will soon hatch
and eat the horn worm from the inside out, and then go out to find
other horn worms to lay their eggs in. I have never had horn worms
around long enough to do much damage before the wasps take care of them.
A web search should turn up photos of parasitized horn worms for
reference.

--
Steve

tomato horn worms!

they can be really hungry!!

I just pick mine off and toss into the woods there are never alot of them to
warrant spraying

I guess you could spray with BT for the previous 2 months but that is a
hassle and they dont really hurt the plant if you catch them early.

tomatolord

"ginnydudek" wrote in message
oups.com...
Leaves on my tomatoe plants seemed to be diappearing. I found 6 big
green catapillers and took them off. What are these? What can I do to
avoid them. Ginny

Thanks. I did just cut off them branch and tossed them into my flower
garden. They did wreck havvoc with my tomatoe plants in just one day.
Ginny

Actually, the cocoons you're seeing are from
wasps that have already eaten their way through
the caterpillar and then emerged. Adult wasps
will emerge from the cocoons and fly off in
search of other caterpillars.

A good place to toss them is actually out in the
open grass where you'll make some bird happy

If you want to find pictures on the web, try a
Google search on the terms "Apanteles" (their
old name) or "Cotesia" which is their current
scientific name ("Cotesia congregatus").