parasitized hornworm

Summer…tomatoes…hornworms… It seems like you can’t have one with­out the others.

tobacco-hornworm-parasitized-by-wasps

Jenny, friend of the blog, over on the other coast, sent me this photo from her gar­den, a tobacco horn­worm that has been par­a­sitized by a wasp.

Here’s an almost perky descrip­tion of what’s hap­pen­ing, cour­tesy the Clem­son Uni­ver­sity Depart­ment of Ento­mol­ogy, Soils & Plant Sci­ences page. You can prac­ti­cally hear the ento­mol­o­gists spin­ning their LPs with bub­bly 1950s pizzi­cato string music in the background:

The adult wasp inserts its eggs beneath the skin of the horn­worm larva. The eggs hatch and the young bra­conids feed on the vis­cera of the horn­worm until they pupate… This par­a­site is an impor­tant fac­tor in con­trol of horn­worms and is most ben­e­fi­cial (my italics).


cherokee-purple-tomatoes

I do get pro­tec­tive of my toma­toes, espe­cially early in the sea­son. But learn­ing the details of bio­log­i­cal con­trols some­times gives me the creeps.

Any empa­thy for the evil horn­worm out there? No? Oh well. I thought I’d try…

June 29 2009 05:50 am | Categories: gardening | Tags: • •

7 Responses to “parasitized hornworm”

  1. Darla on 29 Jun 2009 at 8:10 am #

    I feel noth­ing for the worm!

  2. Paul on 29 Jun 2009 at 10:52 am #

    No empa­thy from me. I hate the lit­tle buggers.

  3. Lynn on 29 Jun 2009 at 6:22 pm #

    uh, I’m so happy I didn’t find this on my toma­toes! It’s a touch stomach-churning. I did find 3 very small black and white cater­pil­lars curled up on a che­lone lyonii tonight. Cute as they are, I was sort of hop­ing they’d be tiny but­ter­flies in the mak­ing, but I think they’re just eat­ing my plant is all.

  4. lostlandscape on 29 Jun 2009 at 8:37 pm #

    Darla and Paul, this is proof. Nature’s brutal!

    Lynn, I think it’s one of those untold facts about plants that are sold for but­ter­fly gar­dens. Peo­ple pic­ture pretty flow­ers with flit­ting but­ter­flies all around, when in real­ity a lot of the but­ter­fly plants are actu­ally bug-food, as in crawly, icky, caterpillar-infested bug snacks that the but­ter­fly lar­vae feed on. But then some of the cater­pil­lars are pretty cool crit­ters by themselves.

  5. Bird on 30 Jun 2009 at 9:56 am #

    Tonight I will retire pro­foundly grate­ful that:
    1/ We don’t get Tobacco Horn Worms in the UK, or at least, not that I’m aware.
    2/ I am not a Tobacco Horn Worm. I am fre­quently grate­ful about my posi­tion on the food chain and this is yet another great reminder of my luck.

  6. Sylvana on 30 Jun 2009 at 7:35 pm #

    Love those toma­toes! The horn­worm, not so much.

    I bought a climb­ing rose from a nurs­ery once that had no smell at the nurs­ery, but after a week at my house it had the most pow­er­ful rose smell! Maybe all those florist flow­ers are just so sad about not being free that they can’t man­age a smell ;)

  7. out of doors on 22 Jul 2009 at 7:30 am #

    Thank you for point­ing out that but­ter­fly gar­den­ing actu­ally (partly) means tend­ing to flocks of cater­pil­lars. The sphinx moth, final stage of a tomato horn­worm, is a beau­ti­ful and impres­sive crea­ture, sub­tly col­ored and as big as my hand. But then, I do love me some tomatoes…

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