It's a twig caterpillar. It turns into a dull taupe colored moth. My kid stored one in small plastic margarine container with some leaves and a green cherry tomato. It flew away last week. It was a fun little summer science project... I guess.

If you can cut him into pieces, you're infinitely less a wuss than I am. I drown them in soapy water.

Actually, I've gotten a bit beyond merely drowning them. Last fall, when I was certain hornworm season was over and had stopped my daily checking, I found a bunch of teenage hornworms on the tops of my grapes, I tore off the branches they were attached to, walked over to the (sharp) gravel driveway, and whapped them on the gravel until they died.

So far this year the most violent I've gotten was to squish some leaf miners on the asphalt driveway (yep -- two driveways -- no car -- go figure). If I can't see what I'm killing, and can't feel it under my foot, it doesn't count as violence.

I don't rear most loopers (inchworms) mainly because of the dull moths they are when they reach adulthood.

I do rear hornworms though, because they become large sphinx moths that I find a lot more interesting than the more familiar, small, dull moths.

I don't usually kill caterpillars that I find on my tomatoes, but I won't hesitate to pulverize stink bugs and the occasional snail.

I'm wondering if we even get stink bugs here in this area. IIRC I've never seen one before, but since my memory is horrible, that doesn't necessarily mean that I haven't, lol.

Unfortunately, I have no love for caterpillars or moths anymore. Ever since I watched those beautiful cabbage moths/butterflies laying eggs that then ate their way through my collards almost beyond saving, I've adopted a strict "if I see them, then they have to die" policy. Somewhat fortunately for them, I'm not always as diligent as I should be. :P

Why would you kill this creature. You people all must have pretty weak plants/gardening techniques if you are forced to kill a few caterpillers that probably turn into nice moths.

MTO, in general, I'm like you, lol. As long as I can't see or feel it squish, I'm ok. But it took killing many, many cabbage worms starting with the babies and working up the nerve to kill the larger ones, before I could even fathom killing the twig caterpillar. I still squeal and run through the house with my arm outstretched as far as it can be, clutching a wad of paper, if I have to kill a tiny spider. Although if I can help it, lately I've tried to scoop them up on the biggest piece of paper I can find, to run them outside.

And to anthony_toronto, "you people"? Really? I may have "pretty weak gardening techniques", as this is my first year growing anything, and I may have weakened plants because I have a tomato psyllid infestation that nobody seems to know how to effectively control, but for all my weaknesses, at least I'm polite enough not to refer to anyone as "you people" and insult them right out of the gate for no discernible reason.

Go make useless, unhelpful, inflammatory comments elsewhere. Thanks.

anthony_toronto,

I guess I am one of "you people". Great group to be in by the way. It beats being a snippy know-it-all. I am killing every grasshopper I can by spreading nosema locustae. We had a rather warm winter, cold wet spring and that has led to one of the heaviest grasshopper infestations I have seen in several years. When you walk across the pasture, it's almost like walking across a pan with activly popping pop-corn.

There is nothing weak about my plants other than the fact that that new strawberry plants have been chewed to the crown and likely will not survive. The last time they were this bad (and before I knew about nosema locustae) they about wiped out my garden, along with farmers loosing a great deal of their crops. And there is nothing weak about their growing techniques either, since they have been providing spuds, grains, fruits and even wine for this (and other) nation's tables for many years.

I would happily box up several thousand grasshoppers and send them to you to see how your garden deals with them, but being the cannibals they are, you'd probably get a box with a 7 pound grasshopper in it.

spaghetina, BRAVO!

Bets

What happened to hate deep seeded hatred of lettuce loopers Anthony?