# Goshdarned Caterpillars! **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 5, 2008, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goshdarned-caterpillars/451940 "2008-06-05T21:58:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![nashiitashii](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7c8e57/32.png) [@nashiitashii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nashiitashii)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2008, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goshdarned-caterpillars/451940/1 "2008-06-05T21:58:44Z")
Yesterday we noticed that there were holes on a bunch of our tomato plants; not huge ones, mind you, but ones that had turned some of our beautiful tomato plants into plant-based lace appliqués. Considering it’s been hot outside for a while, we theorized a bit on the cause, and today we discovered it: little teeny tiny orange headed, black and and blue and yellow striped caterpillars that were about 3 or 4mm long. Too small to identify clearly, but big enough to do a lot of damage. At this point, it was time for us to introduce an annihilation plan. So, we went to the Home Despot and picked us up a big ol’ can of fruit and vegetable friendly insecticide and proceeded back home. Between drizzles of rain, we cut off the branches with caterpillars on them as much as we could find, then sprayed down the whole garden. We lost an entire plant to these little bastards, and now they’ve been named bastard-pillars. They’re not even [the cool kind you can keep as a pet](http://images.google.com/images?q=tomato%20horn%20worm&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi)! Now we’re down to closer to 100 tomatoes instead of at least 120 or so, but it looks like we nipped it in the bud… and I was hoping we wouldn’t have to break out the insecticide this year. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Autolycus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@Autolycus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autolycus)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2008, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goshdarned-caterpillars/451940/2 "2008-06-05T22:21:04Z")
Whooo… are… you… to deprive [caterpillars](http://www.guntheranderson.com/costuming/alice/caterpillar-disney-2.jpg) from their food? ---
**Author:** ![Dogzilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@Dogzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogzilla)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2008, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goshdarned-caterpillars/451940/3 "2008-06-05T22:36:22Z")
Ohhhh… Those are tomato hornworms. You can sprinkle bt on 'em and they’ll die. Bt is just a bacteria (Bacillus Thuringiensis) that eats away at their skins and kills 'em, but it’s organic, so you can still wash off your tomatoes and eat 'em. Get [this stuff](http://www.planetnatural.com/site/dipel-dust.html) at any good nursery. P.S. Really. You don’t need insecticide. I promise. Just get some Dipel (dust or spray) and reapply after it rains. ---
**Author:** ![nashiitashii](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7c8e57/32.png) [@nashiitashii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nashiitashii)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2008, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goshdarned-caterpillars/451940/4 "2008-06-06T00:49:10Z")
[QUOTE=Dogzilla] Ohhhh… Those are tomato hornworms. [/quote] Wait, are you saying that we’ve got teeny-tiny, itty bitty tomato hornworms, or that you’ve never seen tomato hornworms before? > [@](#): > > You can sprinkle bt on 'em and they’ll die. Bt is just a bacteria (Bacillus Thuringiensis) that eats away at their skins and kills 'em, but it’s organic, so you can still wash off your tomatoes and eat 'em. Get [this stuff](http://www.planetnatural.com/site/dipel-dust.html) at any good nursery. > > P.S. Really. You don’t need insecticide. I promise. Just get some Dipel (dust or spray) and reapply after it rains. :smack: Now I know for next time, and we’ll definitely go the organic route if it comes back. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Them](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/898d66/32.png) [@The\_Them](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Them)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2008, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goshdarned-caterpillars/451940/5 "2008-06-06T02:33:28Z")
This got mentioned (by me) in an absolutely unrelated thread. Soak cheap cigars in water overnight. Spray the ugly brown resulting water on plants. (Dispose of wet cigars in toxic waste dump.) Dead bugs, and it washes off in the next rain. Or so I’ve heard. ---
**Author:** ![elelle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f0a364/32.png) [@elelle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elelle)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2008, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goshdarned-caterpillars/451940/6 "2008-06-06T02:43:57Z")
And, always obligatory in the ???s on Tomato Hornworms: if you see [this odd projection](http://gardening.about.com/od/gardenproblems/ig/Insects-and-Diseases-of-Plants/Tomato-Hornworm-with-Predator.htm) on a hornworm, leave it be. It’s the larvae of a braconid wasp, which feeds on the hormworm, from inside out. Ya want to encourage these wasps to take their share of hornworms, so let nature take it’s course to make more braconid wasps. ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2008, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goshdarned-caterpillars/451940/7 "2008-06-06T02:54:14Z")
[QUOTE=nashiitashii] little teeny tiny orange headed, black and and blue and yellow striped caterpillars that were about 3 or 4mm long. [/QUOTE] Tomato hornworms are, basically, green. “Black, blue, and yellow striped” caterpillars don’t sound like tomato hornworms to me. They sound like a butterfly caterpillar to me. [Black swallowtail, perhaps.](http://www.uky.edu/Ag/CritterFiles/casefile/insects/butterflies/swallowtail/swallowtail.htm#black) Tomato hornwoms are insidious in that they’re green and they’re hard to see, so by the time you realize you’ve got hornworms, they’re humongous, Godzilla-sized caterpillars. When they’re only 3 or 4 mm long, you normally don’t even know they’re there. Whatever, the BT ought to work. BTW, tomato hornworms are the larval form of the sphinx moth. ---
**Author:** ![nashiitashii](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7c8e57/32.png) [@nashiitashii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nashiitashii)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2008, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goshdarned-caterpillars/451940/8 "2008-06-06T14:08:06Z")
Oh, they’re definitely not Black Swallowtail caterpillars. They look a little bit like [this](http://www.abads.net/bruginsects/images/amoth_larvae_small.jpg), but they’re so small that it’s really difficult to tell what they are. When I mentioned 3-4mm, I meant the entire length of the body. They have orange heads and a row of black spots “across their shoulders” and “across their butt” like a tiger stripe. This is all according to **Acid Lamp** , but I am not quite seeing this. They look like black with some “not black” mixed in teeny tiny amounts that are almost indefinably small to me. ---
**Author:** ![nashiitashii](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7c8e57/32.png) [@nashiitashii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nashiitashii)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2008, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goshdarned-caterpillars/451940/9 "2008-06-06T14:30:01Z")
**Acid Lamp** decided to make another attempt at photographing the bastard-pillars. [this](http://picasaweb.google.com/adamjprawlocki/Gardening/photo#5208774167474578050) is what they look like, and that photo is 300-400% larger than what can be seen with the naked eye. There’s only a few of them left\*, which is good, but we’re still curious as to what they are. \*Spent part of yesterday cutting away and bagging branches that they were inhabiting and spraying down the garden for caterpillars.