Talk about a face only a mother could love! The bits of brown stuff on this tobacco hornworm’s face are remnants of food. These critters aren’t exactly tidy eaters…
A couple of days ago, in my last post, I promised to upload some caterpillar photos. Well, here they are! These are a few white box pictures of tobacco hornworms (Manduca sexta). Apparently this species ranges into British Columbia, but I’ve never found one. And there certainly wouldn’t be any available in the wild locally at this time of year. I bought these specimens in a local per shop. I was there to pick up some crickets (mantid and scorpion food) and saw that they had some of these caterpillars (and also silkworms: Bombyx mori) for sale. Needless to say, I purchased some to play with.
White box photo of a tobacco hornworm showing the beautiful turquoise colour of a captive reared specimen; the distinctive markings; and the red “horn” on its posterior end
I really like these critters, not that they do much—they are really just big fat eating machines (they grow up to 70 millimetres in length). As you can see, they are a beautiful translucent turquoise colour with diagonal white stripes on the side and a red “horn” at the posterior end (hence the name “hornworm”). The turquoise colour indicates that they have been raised in captivity. In the wild they are bright green in colour due to the yellow (carotenoid) pigments found in the plants they feed on. These yellow pigments combine with the animal’s natural blue pigment (found in their blood) and the result is a green caterpillar. Hopefully these caterpillars will thrive in my care and pupate…eventually providing me with some adult tobacco hornworm moths to photograph.
White box photo of a tobacco hornworm in a yoga cobra pose
The photography of these animals was really straight forward: I used the same technique that I described in previous posts (see: How to: white box photography of Macleay’s spectre stick insects). The resulting images are very nice, as white box photos usually are. The turquoise animals stand out nicely against the white background. However, I also experimented with using a white box to produced pictures of these caterpillars with a more natural background. I’ll post those pictures in my next blog.
Cheers,
EC
The technical stuff:
Camera: Olympus E-620 digital SLR
Lens: Zuiko 35mm macro
Settings: manual exposure (F16 @ 1/125 sec)
Lighting: Vivitar 283 flash and VP-1 Vari-power adapter (1/8 power)
ISO: 100
macrocritters 
That caterpillar is a really pretty color…but someone give that poor thing a napkin! Great photos, as usual!
It really is a beautiful color, probably prettier than if they were raised in nature. Gorgeous photos.
Glad to see your great pictures! I didn’t see 1 tobacco hornworm this season.
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Incredible pictures and great colours!!
I grew up on a crop farm and we raised a LOT of tomatoes. This hornworm is very similar, if not the same, as the ones in our fields. The ones we had were more green in color, but the markings and horn are similar. One worm can strip a plant to twigs quickly and they get very fat and plump. Not good for tomato farmers, but they are pretty, and the moths they turn into are quite fascinating.