TOMATO HORN WORM- and PARASITES!

Tomato horn worm

Well. back out to the garden...results in another find!  Each year I do have to remove the tomato horn-worm from my tomato plants, that is just a given that there will be some.

I have always heard about the Braconid wasp, but had never seen it until yesterday...  

The braconid wasp is a insect parasite. They are actually a parasitoid-a parasite that kill their host.   This wasp usually does not sting humans, it is very small.  

 The female will lay eggs inside the wasp, and the larva will eat away at the worm.  Interesting, as I understand it, they do not eat the vital organs of the worm, so that is why the worm is still living. 

They then chew their way out of the worm, (I wonder if that is the scars I am seeing on the worm 

the brown spots, are covering this worm, and they are not on healthy worms. I wonder if those are the areas that the wasp came thru, as you can see them under where the wasp is connected...

-the circles-that you do not see on the 'healthy' worm in the photo above). 

 They will then pupate, spin a small cocoon.  These cocoons look like tiny eggs, but they are not.  

Eventually the tomato hornworm will die.