Feeding hornworms tomatos

[DrScales]

I have some hornworms alright, and I figured, hey, they eat from tomato plants, yeah? so Imma feed these guys i got online some tomato!
Is there a problem with that? I'm really scared now because I was just trying to find out how to make chow, right, on a forum. A guy was asking about tomatos and the other guy SAID THEY MAKE THEM TOXIC TO ANIMALS.
I just fed spike a hornworm who ate tomato and carrots yesterday, is she dead? ****
I read after though that it's just the leaves and unripened tomatos that will do this? Is that true? Please help...

Spike sends regards...

 

[AHBD]

Spike should be fine.... you'd have fed her a number of wild caught h.w's. that would probably be a problem. Where did you get yours from ? Mine always come with enough chow to get them to a large size. [ Great Lakes hornworm and Linda's gone buggy ]

 

[Taterbug]

Hornworms are kindof neat in that they take toxins found in their host plants (like the nicotine in tobacco) and store it in their tissue I turn making them toxic or unpalatable to predators. I have not seen proof one way or the other if the wild diet of hornworms is toxic to lizards - I'd be pretty interested to see some published info.

Ripe tomatoes probably don't have enough of the compounds to be too much worry. It's probably not a good idea to feed tomato or related plants. As usual better safe than sorry though.

 

[kingofnobbys]

I heard of guy in Perth (WA) -- ?? -- who was collecting the hawk moth catepillars he found growing wild on his grape vines and he was giving these to his pet dragons as live food and they were enjoying them and doing OK.

 

[kingofnobbys]

http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/1270 <== tomato hawk moth is Manduca quinquemacula,

The tobacco hawk moth is Mancuda sexta. (I believe this is the species commercially marketed with a special proprietrary non-toxic chow (as tobacco leaves have toxins in them that are accumulated in the hornworms).

http://www.ozanimals.com/Insect/Vine-Hawk-Moth/Hippotion/celerio.html <== Grape vine hawk moth is Hippotion celerio.
Grape leaves are reputedly a good salad green I have heard (never eaten them myself) so if the leaves are safe to consume the catepilars who consume them ,even seen them sold in bottles at the local shop see http://shop.coles.com.au/online/mobile/nsw-metro-winston-hills/dr-olivee-grape-vine-leaves , so they should be OK (ie silkworms eat mulberry leaves and some people use these in their salads too).

 

[DrScales]

Yeah, mine came with lots of chow but I thought I could try and "gut load them" one way or another.... sounds stupid. Sorry. :lol:
I get my hornworms from rainbowmealworms, like 8 bux for 15, good deals.
Thank,
Spike sends her regards :wink: