Eggs are laid on tomato leaves and hatch in five days.
At dusk they hover over flowers sucking nectar. The adults are large, fast-flying hawk moths, which in flight may look like a hummingbird. Many growers don’t bother looking for the caterpillars because they blend in so well, and instead just look for the frass. The frass of young hornworms is small, but the hornworms grow larger quickly and so does the frass. The frass is often the first noticeable sign of their presence. Look for feeding damage and frass (insect poop) around tomato and pepper plants. The hornworms will also attack fruit, eating gouges out so large that they look more like bites of a furry animal pest than an insect. Sometimes it seems that healthy-looking tomato or pepper plants are stripped of their leaves overnight, leaving bare stems. They are giant caterpillars that grow rapidly and can do a vast amount of eating in a very short amount of time.
Hornworms are probably the most destructive insect that attacks tomatoes. Pest/disease identification and lifecycle, most common damage symptoms and crops affected: This resource is offered as part of MOFGA’s Pest Reports Fact Sheet Series
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