They eat just about anything in the nightshade family, so if you have peppers, eggplant, potatoes, ect., you might want to spray them too.

Yeah, look out for the poop you see at the end of him & on the right.

Treatment depends on the number of plants you are growing. If you only have a few plants, less than 10 or so, I'd take them out one by one. Pick them off and dispose of them quickly, they are voracious.

More plants, you may have to go chemical on them.

I picked off four from my peppers, then decided to keep a fifth in my kids' butterfly enclosure as a little science lesson. It was doing fine for three days, then on day four I noticed the white egg-shaped sacs that signify it had been parasitized! I had to explain the ugly truth about dear "Muncher" to the kids, then we put him out in the garden again so the parasitic wasps could hatch and keep doing their creepy-yet-helpful thing.

What are they called? I have them and remove them by hand.

Tomato hornworm. Funny, that's the only pest I haven't seen so far this year (knock on wood).

Tomato Hornworms. They are the lavae of a Hawk Moth which is quite large.

It breaks my heart to have to remove them from my tomato plants as they are impressive insects, and I've always had a soft spot for butterflies and moths, but my tomatoes must come first!

Linda

Well, actually it's a tobacco hornworm.
And yes, they eat just as much as do tomato hornworms.

Apparently it IS a tomato hornworm. Not a very scientific name! Here's an explanation with pictures:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manduca_sexta

Linda

This morning I found some chewed-down stalks...and a dead bug, suspended on the plant.

Spinosad: 1

Big fat tomato eatin' bug: 0