There is so much, and they're so large, yet I have no hornworm damage. I have one tomato plant on the deck, and it is intact. I have 2 eggplants and one jalapeño, also, and they also have no leaf or branch damage. The rest of the plants are ornamentals in containers. They look fine.

I know there are opossums in the yard. (The dog has caught 4 this year.) There are also slugs. Slug poo?

Does anyone recognize it? Maybe it's a worm passing through.. But there sure was a lot of it. The deck was clean on Friday, it rained yesterday, and I'm in NC. If it's a hornworm, it was eating a lot of something to poo that much and that large. I'm stumped.

That's a nail head next to the "specimen."

Are you sure you don't have any MISSING plants? "LOL> It sounds like a lot of large scat to have left no evidence of destruction around! You do know that they devour whole sections of plants, even chomping on the tomatoes?

If it's not a Hornworm, perhaps it's from another large caterpillar of the Hawk Moth family and perhaps it is feeding on something other than tomatoes (a nearby privet hedge or an overhanging tree for example) in which case there's no need to do anything. Caterpillars who eat one species of plant are not suddenly going to decide that tomatoes would be more tasty, they stick to the food plant on which they were born.

Linda

I swept up all of the evidence and separated the plants. I will check tomorrow for any new poo. It has to be hornworms (large ones) but I can't tell what they could be eating!! I googled slug poo b/c I know there are slugs out there. But not a match. And parsley worm poo is green, and the parsley is intact, too. It's driving me crazy.

I hope you saved all that poop to fertilize your garden (G).

The caterpillars that feed on Parsley (Queen Anne's Lace, Fennel, Dill, Rue and Carrot) are the lavae of the the beautiful Swallowtail butterfly. They don't get as big as the hornworm. I try to restrict them to one plant, and share because I think they are so beautiful.

Linda