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July 15: Beautiful invaders
Jul. 15th, 2010 10:19 pmI went out to visit my balcony plants this evening, listen to the cicadas for as long as I could stand it. I was lovingly fondling the tomato plants, as you do, when I noticed some bare stems.
My first thought was "That darn squirrel!" The stems were chewed off at the end, and all the little leaves along them had been stripped as well. It was a branch that would have been accessible to an animal balancing on the railing. But then I noticed another bare stem, and another, and several larger branches where just the youngest part at the tips had been denuded. Some of those branches looked like the would be out of reach of a squirrel, either from the railing or the boards. Insects was my next thought, but I couldn't imagine what little bugs could take away whole leaves like that. And so many, in just a day! If this went on, my tomatoes would be bare in another day. Cutworms?
There was nothing to do but go inside wondering. As soon as I shut the glass door, though, I noticed a hummingbird had come up right behind me and was hovering in the middle of the balcony, below the feeder. I stopped to watch it, and when it zipped away, my eyes refocused on the tomato plants. There was something odd... like a large wad of rolled-up leaves. So I hurried back out to investigate, and sure enough: the culprit.
(pause for suspense)
A tomato hornworm! A huge, fat, gorgeous green caterpillar with a sharp red hook on his bum and white diagonal stripes along his body. He was munching happily away on the nearest tender tomato leaf. He was so magnificent, at first I couldn't decide whether to take him off the plant or leave him alone. As an experiment. I could just watch and see what happened.
But the thought of sacrificing my lovely tomato plants made me sad. So I put on rubber kitchen gloves (I didn't like the look of that horn), grasped the big guy gently, and tried to pull him off the stem he was working on. His little legs were stuck tight. But I finally got him off -- as the feet detached it felt like a series of little suctiony pops -- and he lay immobile in my hand. Maybe his defense is to freeze. I checked out the mouth: tiny but such an efficient machine! Then I chucked him as far away from the balcony as I could, into the sweet gum tree. Maybe he can find another plant of the nightshade family to pillage. Fortunately, I decided to search my plants thoroughly in the failing light, and I found one more specimen. Bye bye, wormie!
The tomato hornworm or tobacco hornworm is the larva of the Carolina sphynx (Manduca sexta), a big, ugly, mottled grey moth in the hawkmoth family. I found a gardening forum in which a newbie was panicking about the caterpillars on some tomato plants, but one fellow, a biologist, was going around asking people to mail him the caterpillars. "I want those big cats!" he told the nervous poster. I don't blame him. Fascinating!
P.S. I apologize, squirrel, for jumping to conclusions about your guilt!
My first thought was "That darn squirrel!" The stems were chewed off at the end, and all the little leaves along them had been stripped as well. It was a branch that would have been accessible to an animal balancing on the railing. But then I noticed another bare stem, and another, and several larger branches where just the youngest part at the tips had been denuded. Some of those branches looked like the would be out of reach of a squirrel, either from the railing or the boards. Insects was my next thought, but I couldn't imagine what little bugs could take away whole leaves like that. And so many, in just a day! If this went on, my tomatoes would be bare in another day. Cutworms?
There was nothing to do but go inside wondering. As soon as I shut the glass door, though, I noticed a hummingbird had come up right behind me and was hovering in the middle of the balcony, below the feeder. I stopped to watch it, and when it zipped away, my eyes refocused on the tomato plants. There was something odd... like a large wad of rolled-up leaves. So I hurried back out to investigate, and sure enough: the culprit.
(pause for suspense)
A tomato hornworm! A huge, fat, gorgeous green caterpillar with a sharp red hook on his bum and white diagonal stripes along his body. He was munching happily away on the nearest tender tomato leaf. He was so magnificent, at first I couldn't decide whether to take him off the plant or leave him alone. As an experiment. I could just watch and see what happened.
But the thought of sacrificing my lovely tomato plants made me sad. So I put on rubber kitchen gloves (I didn't like the look of that horn), grasped the big guy gently, and tried to pull him off the stem he was working on. His little legs were stuck tight. But I finally got him off -- as the feet detached it felt like a series of little suctiony pops -- and he lay immobile in my hand. Maybe his defense is to freeze. I checked out the mouth: tiny but such an efficient machine! Then I chucked him as far away from the balcony as I could, into the sweet gum tree. Maybe he can find another plant of the nightshade family to pillage. Fortunately, I decided to search my plants thoroughly in the failing light, and I found one more specimen. Bye bye, wormie!
The tomato hornworm or tobacco hornworm is the larva of the Carolina sphynx (Manduca sexta), a big, ugly, mottled grey moth in the hawkmoth family. I found a gardening forum in which a newbie was panicking about the caterpillars on some tomato plants, but one fellow, a biologist, was going around asking people to mail him the caterpillars. "I want those big cats!" he told the nervous poster. I don't blame him. Fascinating!
P.S. I apologize, squirrel, for jumping to conclusions about your guilt!