Small green caterpillars eating tomato plant

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keithp2012 West Babylon, NY(Zone 7a) Oct 18, 2013

I know for a fact these are not hornworms, they have no horn and grow to less than half the size of tomato hornworm. They look like green inchworms when young but last caterpillar stage they don't do the inching motion anymore. Unlike hornworms which burrow underground to pupate, these weave silken cocoons on my tomato plant! I have never seen these before and since tomato plants are will soon die as cold weather approaches I don't see this as a good survival tactic.

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Flapdoodle Minot, ND Oct 18, 2013

Might be one of the looper caterpillars in the family Noctuidae - see http://extension.missouri.edu/p/IPM1019-7#Cabbage for an example.

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keithp2012 West Babylon, NY(Zone 7a) Oct 18, 2013

Quote from Flapdoodle :
Might be one of the looper caterpillars in the family Noctuidae - see http://extension.missouri.edu/p/IPM1019-7#Cabbage for an example.


That looks very similar. We have tons of cabbage white butterflies but I never knew they eat tomato! My question is will the cocoon hatch this year or next spring?

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Flapdoodle Minot, ND Oct 18, 2013

Depends on the weather, but most likely next spring...

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