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Eliza Waters 
Beautiful when they are moths and are not chomping on your tomato plants.
Yeah, the reality of host plants, they get chomped! This one got moved to a Nicotiana, where it can eat all it wants. 🙂
Sure blends right in with the plant!
They have camouflage down perfectly, hidden in plain sight!
Oh, we used to have those as kids. Feed them up and watch them grow. Big suckers they were too 🤣❤️🙏
They can get enormous!
Fantastic image, Eliza. 👏🏻
Thank you, Jane. What a creature!
Well camouflaged
They are… one has to really hunt to find them!
Probably not the most welcome visitor to the tomato plants, yet very attractive and expertly camouflaged 🙂
They are indeed. Once I saw the damage, I really had to hunt to find it. It got moved to a flowering NIcotiana, where it can eat all it wants. I expect it will pupate soon, given its size.
A gorgeous one!
Thanks, makes me think of the caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland, “WHO are you?” 😉
Yes! Me too.
Ha, doesn’t it? All it needs is the hookah and glasses. 😀
🤣
Great shot! I bet they can cause a lot of damage – they are enormous! Lovely if you see the moths though.
Thanks, Cathy! This one did eat quite a bit of a tomato plant before I found it and moved it to another Solanaceae plant (Nicotiana). I love the moths, so I move them to a plant I don’t mind them eating. Another month and everything will be finished anyway, but there are still some good tomatoes left to ripen. 🙂
Amazing how well he blends into the background. Do they have any predators?
They need their camouflage as apparently they are tasty to many birds and predatory insects.
We also had those in Texas.
Yes, they are pretty widespread. However, I like the hawk moths when they come to sip flowers. 🙂
The amount of damage these can do overnight is amazing. I’ve heard stories! Given this one’s size, it’s amazing that it was so well camouflaged.
Woe to one who skips a day without checking the garden! It had munched quite a bit, but it could have been worse.
Scourge of the tomato patch. Makes a nice image – and the sphinx moth is attractive as well.
Thank you, Tom. You got that right, they can munch a plant down to nubs in no time. So off this one went to a Nicotiana!
As a kid, one of my garden chores was disposing of the tomato hornworms. Now, I’d move them.
👍🏼 We now know more about the interconnectedness of all things.
I remember finding one on my Tobasco plant. I left it there… oy! What a mistake! What a glutton! Had I realised, I would have moved him to a Nicotiana, myself… They are spectacular as moths, though…
I couldn’t bear dispatching him/her, however, with so many good tomatoes about to ripen, he/she needed new digs!
Exactly! Just moved to New digs!
Green on green and still a great capture! They’re the bane of many a fresh tomato lovers!
Thank you, Tina. Luckily, I grow other Solanaceae family plants that I can move them to. Fortunately, I haven’t seen hornworms in years, but I do recall seeing an adult earlier in the summer who may have been responsible for this offspring.
What a great camouflage nature gives.
It seems all the birds in my yard missed this one!
The caterpillar is a beefy fellow! It’s much more attractive in its moth form.
https://krispgarden.blogspot.com/
Agreed… They are such green blobs, ha!
Well spotted Eliza, we don’t see those here and the moth he’ll turn into looks beautiful 💚 xxx
Thank you, Xenia. Be thankful that they aren’t there, at 4″ long, they can decimate a mature tomato plant in a couple days, they are so voracious!
😊🙏 xxx
Your portrait of the Tobacco Hornworm is a great one! He looks like he belongs..
Thanks, Maria. A master of camouflage!
Whoa…talk about an ugly duckling turning into a beautiful swan (and dare I say, destructive ugly duckling?).
I am glad that I had alternative munchies for him/her. I wouldn’t ever dispatch him, as he deserves a chance to fulfill his destiny! 🙂
Gold star for you for letting him fulfill his destiny! ⭐️
🙂
Wonderful shot (but worms kind of make me go ewww!!)
Thank you, Debbie. I understand, I used to have an ick response to insects, too, but have become desensitized with exposure. They are actually pretty cool to me now. 😀
By the time I discovered 3, this summer, they were covered with Braconid wasp cocoons. They were past doing any damage.
All part of the plan, I guess. Nature can be tough!
Great capture, very cool looking! Do they cause any damage in your garden?
Thank you! A single caterpillar can devour an entire tomato plant, so no, they are not welcome in the veggie garden. Hornworm host plants are in the tomato (Nightshade) family, so eggplant, potatoes and tobacco are yummy to them. I took this one off my tomato and put it on a flowering tobacco plant, which it could munch all it wanted. 🙂 I put a photo of an adult in the post to show why I wouldn’t kill one– Sphinx, hummingbird and hawk-moths are delightful to watch as they hover to sip flowers in June/July. The answer is to have a host plant that is okay for them to eat.
I looked up the family – it also contains our British hawkmoths, which are similarly huge and dramatic. However, our species don’t eat tomatoes! I guess it’s not surprising that you have tomato chompers given that tomatoes were originally a New World species. Glad you saved your plants and gave this one a better home 🙂
Thank you, Adele. I try for a win-win if I can.