Adult tomato worms are typically 3 to 5 inches long and they have a large black horn on their rear ends. This horn may look like it can do plenty of damage, but its actually pretty harmless. If you suspect that a tomato worm has bitten you, chances are it wasn’t a hornworm that bit you. A tomato hornworm (or any hornworm or insect for that matter) will do whatever it can to protect itself – especially if you handle it for too long. However, it doesn’t defend itself by “biting.” A hornworm will spit out the contents of its stomach, it will wiggle and thrash about, and it may even wrap itself around your finger, but it does not have the capability to sting or pierce the skin. It is important to keep in mind, however, that the hornworms’ “wrap” can be quite uncomfortable, so it’s best not to handle them for too long.

Another issue with handling tomato worms for too long has to do with parasite infestations. While the tomato worm may be infected by a number of parasites, the most common is the braconid wasp. The larva hatch on the tomato worm and it feeds on the worm’s insides until the wasp is ready to hatch. The cocoons are quite visible to the naked eye and they look like raised white bumps on the tomato worms body. It’s probably not a good idea to handle a tomato worm that shows signs of a parasite infestation, but leaving it in your garden can be a good thing. Once the wasps emerge from their cocoons, they will kill the tomato worm host then seek out other tomato worms to infest. This natural enemy is an effective treatment for tomato worm infestations.

If you have a small garden and if you don’t notice white protrusions on any tomato worms that you see, it’s ok to quickly handpick the tomato worms from your garden. You can drop them in a bucket of water or snip them in half. This is considered an effective method of tomato worm control in small gardens. Other effective methods of controlling tomato worms in your garden include: rototilling and biological treatment. Rototilling means to turn up the soil after harvest. This will destroy any pupae that may be there. Biological treatment with Bacillus thuringensis, or BT (e.g., Dipel, Thuricide), will kill the tomato worms and it is especially effective on smaller larvae. BT must be used with extreme caution because it can be harmful to humans.

A silkworm is the larvae of the silkmoth. Its favorite food is white mulberry and they have a very strong appetite. Silkworms are large in size and they have several other uses to humans outside of producing silk. Silkworms are also a delicacy in places such as Korea and China — which is the only way one of these creatures could ever end up inside the human body, and they are also used in traditional Chinese medicine to treat spasms, relieve gas, and rid the body of mucus or phlegm.

While silkworms can be found on silk farms all around the world, you can also raise them right at home. Silkworm eggs may be purchased from a number of online stores or directly from farms or growers. They typically arrive in a box and they should be transferred to an open container immediately. A wooden bowl will do just fine. Silkworm eggs may be kept in warm temperatures ranging from roughly 80-85 degrees and they should be kept out of direct sunlight. The air should be moist and the area where the eggs are kept should be well ventilated.

Silkworm eggs typically hatch within two weeks of arrival to your home and they will begin to eat immediately, so it’s best to have plenty of white mulberry on hand for them. How much the silkworm eats will determine the quality of and just how much silk it will produce, so keep them well fed and happy. When the eggs hatch, they will resemble furry black worms, but as they begin to mature (and molt), their color lightens to yellow or nearly white. They grow up to three inches in length and around a half inch in diameter.

Silkworms enclose themselves in a cocoon made of raw silk after they have molted at least four times. This silk cocoon is made of one single thread of raw silk that can be anywhere from 1,000 to more than 3,000 feet in length. The silk is produced in the salivary glands of the silkworm and it is used for protection during the silkworms pupal stage.

Today, it is estimated that roughly 75 million pounds of raw silk are produced each year. It takes more than 3,000 cocoons to make one pound of silk and more than 10 billion pounds of mulberry leaves to feed the silkworms that produce the planets precious silk. Unfortunately, commercial silk is made by boiling the silkworm cocoons. This means that many of the silkworms (soon to be moths) are killed in their cocoons. Some of the moths are allowed to emerge so that these chosen few can continue the population of silkworms.

Fortunately, cruelty-free silk does exist. It’s called “peace Silk.” Peace silk, also referred to as “vegetarian silk” uses the process of degumming and spinning the raw silk to produce a soft, fluffy fabric that is excellent for warmth and therapy. This degumming and spinning process allows the moth to safely emerge from the cocoon and live out the remainder of its life cycle — in peace.

The design of the Tomato Worm suit, with its bellows-style joints, was considered at the time to be a major break-through in space suit engineering. Prior to that, most space suits restricted an astronaut’s freedom of motion at the joints to an almost unmanageable degree, particularly once the suits were pressurized.

The first Tomato Worm suit was invented by an engineer at the B.F. Goodrich company by the name of Russell Colley. Legend has it that the idea for the segmented joints in pressurized space suits came to Colley while he was in his garden, and saw a Tomato Worm execute a 90-degree turn without any obvious change to the pressure in its body.

Check out our Tomato Worm video!

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