Gross, gross, gross, gross, gross...

Jul 8, 2008 at 2:27 PM
19 comments

(shudder) and one more time for good measure GROSS!

First let me say that I'm not afraid of bugs or spiders or any other creepy crawlies BUT I went out to check on my tomatoes earlier... they're still there..and found this on one of my plants...

Ewwwww

1 comment

Eww,,,it's molting..gross! I gave out a little shriek and ran in the house to get DeWitte..he was home for lunch. He's only afraid of spiders, wasps and giant moths (which is what this caterpillar turns into if we let it live.). He wouldn't touch it either. He got a pair of BBQ tongs and tried to pull it off. It wouldn't budge. He ended up cutting off the leaf.

Ok..I can hear you now..OMG Jamie, you're such a baby! It's just a giant caterpillar, big enough to eat your face off..what's so bad about that? Well, where there's one, there's more. I checked the rest of the plants and found this....

EwwwwwER

No...that's not a sweet giant hornworm tomato caterpillar carrying around it's little baby giant caterpillars on it's back like a good ferocious face eating caterpillar mom. That caterpillar is infested with wasp eggs. That's right..a wasp has laid it's eggs on the back of that caterpillar...and now the fun bit. I looked it up..we're supposed to keep that caterpillar in a jar with more tomato leaves so that the wasp eggs can hatch and eat it inside out..that way infusing more parasitic wasps into the world.

I don't think so Clark.

19 comments

Comments

Blech! At first, I was thinking that they were crazy saying "let them do their job", but I think I get it now - if we let them "do their job" then they'll go out and get other caterpillars - which sounds smart, but I don't think I'll make it since I hate, hate, hate, hate, wasps...

(did I say HATE enough yet?)

I don't think either "gross" or "hate" were used enough in this post.

AAAGGGHHHHH!!!!

Seriously, what in the world is up with your yard? You've got more critters this summer than I've seen in the past 4 years here, all doing weird and creepy things! Glad I didn't plant tomato plants this year!

I have developed a high tolerance for gross-outs thanks to my farm upbringing. But I threw up a little at the picture and description of the wasp carrying caterpillar.

I don't know but if this keeps up, I'm gonna have to move. On a lighter note, though, the baby mourning doves have flown/hopped/jumped off of their perch over the front door and are hanging out on the front porch..they're sooo cute!

I was in the "beauty" camp of the caterpillar but I got WOOZY with the wasp eggs. JesusHChrist, kill them ALL. I'm big on putting things out of their misery.

I recommend Sevin dust. I've been using it on my tomatoes for years and I ain't dead yet. It's also helpful to put a barrier around your tomato plants that the hornworm can't crawl over. Whatever you choose to do, do it quick. They will eat all of your tomatoes!

dewitte replied to Queen of Fractal Beauty’s comment:
Jul 8, 2008
Reply

Is this like a "if you build it, they will come" type of situation? I mean, I've NEVER seen anything like that around before and we start growing tomatoes and the show up. I guess it is like the year I got an upside down finch feeder free with another feeder, and for a whim we hung it up and surprisingly, a bunch of upside down finches showed up.

Queen of Fractal Beauty replied to dewitte’s comment:
Jul 8, 2008
Reply

Is this like a "if you build it, they will come" type of situation?

It is around here. I remember one year when I was a kid we went on vacation for a couple of weeks in the summer and when we got home they had eaten all the tomatoes and moved on to the roses.

Okay, I felt my lunch sort of lurch upward on that second photo. Too bad there isn't some wildlife preserve for either caterpillars or wasps that you could release that second one to.

Noooooooo! don't kill it. The wasps are a natural predator and will keep the nasty caterpillar in check which means that we can use less and less pesticides.

If I can get it interested in eating the ugly Canna Lilies instead of my tomatoes..he can stay. It can eat as many of those as it wants to.

Actually, Nathan's got them both in a jar. Little boys really dig stuff like that. I told him he can feed them the suckers off of my tomato plants, as much as it grosses me out. Blech!

Yuck. This is why I buy pesticides. All those creepy crawlies can do whatever they want as long as they stay off my plants. After that, it's war!

OMG that second pic about made me sick! I would have screamed also.
Wasps = BAD.
Kill em, toss em on a bonfire or something! ewwwww!

It's kind of sad if you think about it. I mean, just think if that were you on that plant and some other thing kept looking at you and saying, "Gross!" :D I have to agree though, that's kind creepy crawly no doubt.

Aaaahhhhhhhh! Aaaaahhhhhh! Bleeeeaaaaaahhh!

as gross as this post is, it's quite entertaining.

These are parasitoid wasps and not the yellow jacket stinging kind; they are only interested in killing the caterpillar. It is not a threat to us! I figure it is better for them to keep the pests in check rather than us spraying so much and growing a third arm out of our ear. T'is rather science fiction-esque.

I'm happy to report..the infested caterpillar lived on in the jar eating fresh tomato leaves everyday until today, when those wasps hatched off of it's back in a disgusting manner and flew away. I hope they kill a whole lot of caterpillars. Yuck.

Gross, gross, gross, gross, gross...

Comments

Post a comment

About Me

My Links

Neighborhood

Archives