covered in braconid wasp eggs. He is curiously in the same exact spot
as yesterday and has done no damage, which made me wonder if he was
dead already. Which brings us to the second poor photograph - a dark
and deflated hornworm hanging from another tomato branch. A little
more internet searching explained that the wasp lays its eggs inside
the worm and the larva eats its way out (apparently leaving behind a
deflated worm corpse). So the egg carrier in the first shot must be
already dead and just acting as a host now. How sci-fi.
I'm hoping that the wasps will now take over in keeping my 32 tomato
plants worm-damage free.
Also it seems these guys are tobacco hornworms, not tomato hornworms.
Tobaccos have a read horn and tomatoes have a green one. Their white
markings differ slightly, too. But they behave pretty much the same.
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