Tomato Hornworm

Emily found this tomato hornworm on one of our tomato plants.  It ate and ate and completely destroyed the plant but we enjoyed watching it grow.  Isn't he beautiful!!!  We discovered what caterpillar poop or to be more technical caterpillar frass looks like. 

 One day the tomato hornworm disappeared.  We hoped that it had just burrowed in the soil to change into a pupae and then make it's change into a Sphinx Moth.  Today, the kids pulled up the remaining leafless tomato plants and began digging through the soil looking for the pupae. 

Ethan found it!  We were so excited! It's huge!!  It began to wiggle all around trying to scare us in case we were a predator. 

 We placed it in a container and covered it with a little soil and anxiously awaited for it to emerge from the case and become a Sphinx Moth.  It finally did emerge but never unfolded its wings right and ended up dying.  We were very sad.

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