Other insects eat them as well, including stinkbugs and assassin bugs, which insert their uniquely-adapted mouthparts into the caterpillars and suck them dry.Īnd then there are the parasitic wasps. Once they mature, even scavenging mammals will seek them out as a source of protein. When they’re still tiny, they serve as food for a wide variety of birds. The second batch remains in the ground as pupae through the winter months, and moths emerge in the spring.įrom an ecological perspective, tobacco hornworms play numerous roles.
In our region, there are typically two generations of caterpillars in a summer. When the caterpillars have matured and finished feeding, approximately a month after hatching, they drop to the ground and dig an underground chamber in which to pupate. Another deterrence tactic: they will also often regurgitate when threatened. Those mandibles also produce a clicking sound that is believed to serve as a warning to predators. He would have even more trouble if he pointed out that tobacco hornworms may even try to nip your finger, though their mandibles aren’t strong enough to break your skin. Jaffe calls the behavior “regal,” though he admits that he would have trouble convincing tomato farmers of that. By the time they reach their fifth instar, they can become quite bold, occasionally rearing up on their hind legs when disturbed and thrashing their heads back and forth. After hatching from tiny eggs on the underside of leaves, the green caterpillars, decorated with diagonal white lines, go through the typical five moth stages of growth, called instars.
The caterpillars exhibit some pretty special behaviors, too. “They’re very impressive and long-lived, and they almost give off the impression of being mammal-like – fluffy and hairy with large eyes that reflect red in the light,” said Jaffe. According to Sam Jaffe, founder of The Caterpillar Lab in Keene, New Hampshire, Carolina sphinx moths have the longest proboscis of any insect in New England, which allow them to probe the deepest flowers. These large-bodied moths have five-inch, coffee-colored wings that enable them to hover over flowers like hummingbirds. They also have voracious appetites and a preference for consuming our tomato, potato, eggplant and pepper plants.ĭespite their alien appearance, tobacco hornworms are native insects that contribute to local food chains and eventually transform into beautiful Carolina sphinx moths. In part it’s because they are among the largest caterpillars in the region, sometimes reaching close to three inches in length, with reddish horns on their ends that look like stingers (but aren’t). The big, meaty green caterpillars that many of us have been fighting to eradicate from our gardens this summer make plenty of people squirm.
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