In the past month, we have found a couple of caterpillars that we decided to investigate. The first one we found was on my tomato plant. Bad bug! Well, he was so cute, we just put him in a butterfly box and fed him tomato leaves. He was a happy camper!



Sadly, I found out a little too late that this guy in particular needed about 2-3" of soil to pupate in. We could tell he was in search of something. He wasn't eating anymore, so we knew it was time for him to pupate. I looked it up and found that they need 1 part dirt, 1 part sand and 2 parts peat moss. Oops... We did our best to fill the bottom in time, but he didn't make it.

Well, this would have been the rest of the story. Tomato hornworms have a voracious appetite for... guess what? Tomato plants. So, it's good to get them out of the garden.

Once they have transformed, they become what many call a Hummingbird Moth because they are huge and fly around like hummingbirds.



Here's a neat site that shows their transformation.
http://mamba.bio.uci.edu/~pjbryant/biodiv/lepidopt/sphingid/ManducaSexta.htm

Stay tuned for the next caterpillar we are studying.