Can someone tell me what this is I found it on my Cape honeysuckle. The pic isn't great sorry.
Please scroll down the pics are there I promise.
Whats this!!!
Help - I'm blind!! LOL
Sorry, for some reason The picture was not posted. Still trying.
Looks like a "mater" worm, wish they'd eat my honeysuckle!!
Does it turn into something like a catapillar. It really eats a lot and fast.
Yep. Hornworm. They are showing up on all kinds of plants that they do not normally eat around here. They turn into a big beautiful moth if you want to raise the thing. The nasty things are eating my bell peppers. Why cant they be happy with the weeds?
It's a tomato hornworm. It looks like it is in the last instar of the Carolina Sphynx moth and it's ready to pupate. Cats often wander away from their host plants and bury themselves in the ground, so it may not have actually been feeding on the honeysuckle. Normally the hornworms take about 30-35 days to pupate and then climb out as a sphynx moth. I think some species of hornworms overwinter in the pupa up in the northern climates.
frogsrus, if you want to get rid of the hornworms, buy some powdered or liquid Bacillus thuringensis. It's commonly sold as Thuricide, Dipel, or just Bt. The hornworm will stop eating shortly after ingesting the bacteria and die. The only thing with using Bt is that it is NOT specific to any one caterpillar--it will kill them all. Liquids can be more precisely applied with a sprayer if you want to just spray one particular plant that you don't want them on.
Thanks everyone! I was going to raise it but didn't look to good last night so I put it back on the honeysuckle that it loved to eat, I had sticks at the top of my honeysuckle just eating the leaves. The honeysuckle plant is big enough that I could spare some for the hornworm. thanks again!!
Leon:
I don't know what you mean when you say the cat "didn't look good." When the sphynx moth is getting ready to pupate, it will get a brownish cast to it. It almost looks like it's rotting from the inside. At that point, they will bury themselves in the soil. It could take up to about 2 weeks for them to fully pupate. They gradually turn darker and darker. The first time I saw it, I thought for sure the thing was dead! In about 30-35 days, they should hatch.
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