Thursday, September 2, 2010

CLUSTERED

Tomato hornworms are strange looking critters. Stranger still when there are wasp cocoons clustered on them. If you look closely, you can see that some of the cocoons have open ends where the wasps have emerged.
It's actually a very cool bit of nature in play. The hornworms are feasting on my tomato plants (the ones Mr. L. now refuses to feast on because the idea that green monsters crawled around on them grosses him out) and the wasp larvae are feasting on the hornworms. Eventually the wasp larvae would kill the hornworm so it's a natural pest deterent in theory. In reality, the hornworms usually eat the tomat plant bare long before the wasp larvae kill them. Still very cool.

10 comments:

  1. never seen a worm like that! hoep he likes the company :-) great for the theme

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  2. Wow, so cool, I have never seen one of those close up...Wonderful macro!

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  3. That is one creepy cluster! Your focus on this is wonderful - very cool image.

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  4. Karen said it just right...creepy cluster. It's so nice and sharp and vivid!

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  5. I sure woke up seeing this at EV. What fabulous detail you got. I hope they are parasitic wasps. Do the grand boys get to see these?
    Happily hornworms don't thrive here, sadly neither do tomatoes.

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  6. Great closeup, yea creepy is a good description. But then photos are suppose to make us feel a certain way. Well accomplished.

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  7. Wow! What a fascinating bit of symbiosis. Does the worm survive until the wasps hatch, I wonder?

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  8. This is so facinating. I have never seen this in nature. You have a great eye, Lorri. (Great picture, too.)

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  9. I have never seen this as well. Great capture but not sure I want to see them on my tomatoes.

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  10. Good shot!! Like to put them under my heal if they are on my tomatoes

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