Tomato Hornworm Caterpillar

Date Found: July 14, 2011

Common Name: Tomato Hornworm Caterpillar

Scientific Name: Manduca quinquemaculata

Found: In Finksburg, MD on my Mimi's tomato plant - one on the under side of a leaf, another on the stalk.


Fun Facts:

They live mostly in the Northern United States.

Commonly found in home gardens, and they attack tomato plants.  They are also know to eat pepper plants, potatoes and eggplants.

Eggs are light-green in color and can be found on the top and bottom sides of leaves in the late spring.

It gets to be 3 1/2 - 4 inches as a full-grown adult.

Instead of building a cocoon, this caterpillar buries itself in the soil to pupate for 2 weeks. After that time, the Sphinx moth will surface, mate and lay eggs for round 2 that year. These second set of eggs will hatch and grow to adult, like their parents, but they will bury themselves and pupate over the winter.  They will emerge as moths the in the spring.

Praying Mantis

Date Found: October 17, 2011

Common Name: Praying Mantis

Scientific Name: Mantis religiosa

Found: On the screen of our back door, Hampstead, MD


Fun Facts:

It eats caterpillars, moths, flies, mosquitoes, bees.

The Praying Mantis can be found in meadows, on foliage and flowers in the Eastern US up to Ontario.

Mantids lay their egg sacks on sticks and twigs that are exposed above the snow. When the weather warms up in the late spring, all the eggs hatch. The tiny nymphs are carried away on the wind.