Signs of hornworms damage include stems stripped bare of leaves and flowers. They have a horn that sticks up off their rear end, and a stubby green face with pointy claws for shoving food into their little mouths. Their green color matches tomato leaves exactly, and their light striping helps them blend right in. There’s no confusing this green hornworm once you’ve seen one. They also have an impressively long proboscis which makes them uniquely suited to feeding on trumpet-shaped flowers like honeysuckle.įor this reason, hawk moths have an important role as pollinators to flowers whose conformation makes it difficult for other pollinators to access. Their flight is similar to hummingbirds with their wings flapping quite rapidly as they dance from flower to flower. Tomato hornworm moths are large, furry, brown to grey colored moths with a wingspan up to 8 inches! The moths tend to be active in the early evening feeding on nectar of several fragrant flowers. And while the tomato hornworm is quite a pest in tomato gardens, the moth is a pretty cool creature also referred to as a sphinx moth or hummingbird moth. What is a tomato hornworm?Īlthough we call them worms, tomato hornworms are actually caterpillars of the five-spotted hawk moth ( Manduca quinquemaculata). In this post, we’ll be talking about what hornworms really are and when you need to take action to protect your plants. It’s easy not to notice them too because their green flesh and stripes blend in perfectly with your healthy tomato plants. Tomato hornworms can strip a plant down to its bones overnight with their voracious appetites.
Large green hornworm munching on tomato leaf Have you ever walked out to your garden one morning to find your tomato plants suddenly stripped bare of their leaves and flowers? If this scene sounds familiar to you, it’s not a rabbit or deer that has decimated your plants, it’s a tomato hornworm.
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