The Green Horned Caterpillar Mystery

When observing our beautiful tomato plants this morning, we discovered a strange sight.  

What first looked like a large patch of white insect eggs, turned out to be a large, green, horned caterpillar with eggs attached to it.  We had never seen anything like this!

What a fantastic research opportunity!  Thanks to google, we were able to search for caterpillars that were green, had a horn, and a was found on a tomato plant. We narrowed it down to two:  a tomato hornworm or a tobacco hornworm.  Even though we found it on a tomato plant, its horn seemed more red than black, meaning it was a Tobacco Hornworm.  Pumpkin, Little Dude and I read on: hornworms are thought of as garden pests and can live on many different crops.

But, what about the strange white egg-looking things on it?  Looking at images of hornworms, we saw a similar sight.  One photo was labeled:"Tobacco hornworm caterpillar... parasitized by wasp larvae."

Wow.  After reading that, we had more questions than answers.  What is a parasite?  Why had a wasp laid eggs on the caterpillar?  What would the larvae do once hatched?  How did we feel about that?  Did we have an ethical responsibility to remove the eggs from the caterpillar or to make sure the eggs remained intact?  More research, and we learned how the white things were really not eggs, but the wasps in their pupal phase.  Soon, the wasps will hatch as adults. 

Wonderful conversation: just one more benefit from gardening with children!  Nature is the best classroom.