Looks like hornworm droppings. Look around under the leaves for a huge green worm. Very hard to spot since they're well camouflaged.

He is right there on the stem in your picture. Look closely, you will see him. Mary

So he is! See, I told you they were well-camouflaged. :)

Good catch, cbadcali.

Lol, hilarious! Isn't it incredible that we overlook these caterpillars...as huge as they are? I do the same thing myself.

Red, since you're a novice, we can assure you that these giants are perfectly harmless to you and they don't bite nor sting. The red 'horn' tells us that this is the Tobacco Hornworm.

My advice to you is that you do some research so that you learn what the eggs look like and the small hatchlings. These pests are best removed before they get to be that big.....which only happens by eating an awfully lot of pepper. All of that poop is your recycled pepper plant.

Bet that pepper is now leafless. The durn thing can eat a whole plant in less time than it takes to look it up on the web.

cactus, before you launch him into the afterlife, check that he doesn't have some little white nodules on his back. If so then a predatory wasp has gotten to him and he is now loaded with tiny little wasp larvae. If he's still moving / eating, move the carcass off your plant to somewhere safe and let the wasps do their thing. You will soon have a whole fleet of little drones to deal with the other horn worms that will come.

Dennis

I was hoping for a little help, but y'all nailed it right out of the ballpark!! Awesome job to everybody. On my three pepper plants I pulled off 5 of these hornworms. The other day my tomato plants were loaded with these same hornworms.

Is there something I can put on the plants (pepper and tomato) to help control them or do I just do the pluck and remove method? Thanks again for all the help.

Red

Pluck & remove is the method of choice when you have a reasonable number of plants.

OK. I'll just have to keep an eye on them daily. I only have three pepper plants. Thanks to everyone for helping me get this figured out so quickly.

Red