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I’ll introduce you to 6 tomato pest caterpillars later in this article but let me start by introducing you to the basic life cycle of all of these garden pests. Some of these caterpillars eat tomato leaves, while others feed on the developing fruits. There are several different types of caterpillars that feed on tomato plants both in vegetable gardens and in containers.

What kind of caterpillars eat tomato plants? In this article, you’ll meet 6 different caterpillars that feed on tomato plants and learn what you can do to control them without using synthetic chemical pesticides. Whether it’s a hole that goes straight through a ripening tomato or chewed leaves on tomato plants, tomato caterpillars disrupt harvests and gross out even the most unshakable gardeners. These caterpillars blend in well with the foliage they are chowing down on, so it can be difficult to spot the larvae themselves.If you’ve ever come across a caterpillar on a tomato plant, you know the trouble they can cause. The caterpillars feed until late summer or early fall before pupating for the winter. They deposit their eggs on solanaceous plants, preferring tomatoes over all others. The second generation emerge as adults in midsummer, when your tomatoes are growing happily. These sizable pests finish two generations per season, overwintering as pupae and emerging in the spring as adult moths.įemales lay eggs on leaf surfaces, where the caterpillars will begin to feed once they’ve hatched.Ĭaterpillars feed and grow quickly, reaching their maximum size in three to four weeks, at which point they drop off the plant to pupate in the soil. The adults have six yellow spots on each side of the abdomen, not five like M. The tobacco hornworm caterpillar, however, has diagonal white lines on its sides, and a reddish colored horn on the last abdominal segment.