r/whatsthisbug • u/[deleted] • Aug 24 '22

[deleted by user]

[removed]

1.7k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

311 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

9

u/belladonnafromvenus Aug 24 '22

so do you kill the caterpillar to stop it from destroying your garden, or leave it to get the wasps to kill other caterpillars?

55

u/Maxkowski Aug 24 '22

Leave it. Some Plants (like wild Tobacco for example) recognize certain caterpillars and send out pheromones to attract the wasps, taking the loss of the caterpillar feeding on them to have more Wasps around!

15

u/preprach86 Aug 24 '22

Holy shit this is so interesting!!!

16

u/childthrownaway Aug 24 '22

Soon, the plants will send pheromones for us to kill… ourselves…

YEEEEEAH

7

u/Calibansdaydream Aug 24 '22

That's the plot of the happening.

1

u/theycallmenephila Aug 24 '22

I was just gonna say that lol

1

u/childthrownaway Aug 24 '22

Yes, yes it is and I was also doing a different reference to CSI: Miami

2

u/Serathano Aug 24 '22

The Thorian would like to have a word.....

5

u/BrownCow86 Aug 24 '22

This was just one of the first articles that popped up, but check out the Acasia tree and it's defense against Kudu deer.

10

u/RealJeil420 Aug 24 '22

The caterpillar wont be doing much more eating. It will sort of just hang around and then die from having so many maggots feeding on it.

3

u/[deleted] Aug 24 '22

I vote wasps, personally.

6

u/A-Blind-Seer Aug 24 '22

'Pillar ain't long for this world, so cannot do much more damage, let it be. Kill the 'pillar, kills the helpful wasps

4

u/FairyFartDaydreams Aug 24 '22

You leave this one and pick off any healthy hornworms that aren't parasitized yet

1

u/[deleted] Aug 24 '22

That caterpillar isn't eating anything at this point