This post has a photo of a Horned Tobacco Worm that ate our jalapeño plant.
Dave Burba gave us a jalapeño plant. We didn’t have room for it in our garden, so we put it in a planter near the patio. It was doing fine, until I went out one evening and saw that the leaves had been completely eaten by a large Horned Tobacco Worm, leaving nothing but the stalks! I pulled the worm off to put it in the garbage, and thought I should take a picture of it. I should have taken a picture when it was on the jalapeño plant, but it was too late then.
From the internet I found that it’s not uncommon for these large larva to strip a plant of leaves. It produces a large moth with a 4″ wing span, which is called the Hawk Moth or Sphinx Moth. Mary Ann said we should have kept it in a jar so maybe we could have seen the life cycle. It was too late for that too.
I didn’t plan on publishing the picture on the website, but here it is! By the way, the jalapeño plant recovered and is producing peppers now.
