Where did this creepy tomato worm come from??
I grew up in the Pacific Northwest and remember regularly visiting an Aunt and Uncle on their farm. My sisters and I would play for hours in the yard with these weird looking insects. We always used sticks or other means by which to get them to change direction because we were certain that if we used our hands, we would be “fatally wounded” . This of course was not the case but made for better make believe. My Mom knew what they did to her tomatoes so in the end, the horn worms were put to death after we had returned to the car. Both the Tomato Horn Worm and the Tobacco Horn Worm are Larva of two species of Sphinx moths that typically fly at night and they will find your tomato plants where ever they are (there IS no escaping them). This Web page (http://creatures.ifas.ufl.edu/field/hornworm.htm) with pictures of the larva and the adult of both the tobacco horn worm and the tomato horn worm sh
