Summer…tomatoes…hornworms… It seems like you can’t have one without the others.

Jenny, friend of the blog, over on the other coast, sent me this photo from her garden, a tobacco hornworm that has been parasitized by a wasp.

Here’s an almost perky description of what’s happening, courtesy the Clemson University Department of Entomology, Soils & Plant Sciences page. You can practically hear the entomologists spinning their LPs with bubbly 1950s pizzicato string music in the background:

The adult wasp inserts its eggs beneath the skin of the hornworm larva. The eggs hatch and the young braconids feed on the viscera of the hornworm until they pupate… This parasite is an important factor in control of hornworms and is most beneficial (my italics).

I do get protective of my tomatoes, especially early in the season. But learning the details of biological controls sometimes gives me the creeps.

Any empathy for the evil hornworm out there? No? Oh well. I thought I’d try…