SQWIB
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What is this caterpillar

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applestar
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Is it tiny? Was it inside the tomato? If so, then I think most likely Tomato Pinworm
— especially if there was a black bore track in the pithy core starting from somewhere under the calyx.


It could also be fall armyworm which is prevalent around this time of year, and you will find them more as they get bigger to 1-1.5 inches on solanacea and cucurbita, as well as many other crops.

...I found one gauging the watermelon rind the other day — fortunately the wound it made had been shallow enough to heal over (I sprayed with alcohol as preventative against fungal infection).
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SQWIB
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It was tiny, no wider than a fingernail, I have never had a worm in a tomato before although I have seen holes that healed over that I thought might have been pecks from a bird, do these guys only go in a bit and leave? Can these guys get into squash?

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applestar
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Tomato pinworms are solanacea pests and get into tomatoes primarily — usually you will see a black sunken dot somewhere — even tiny current size cherry tomatoes, and thread-like track-mark in the pithy core, then worse cases, the developing black rot can be seen in the gel even from the outside due to frass and bacterial infection.

Late summer cherry tomato harvests with those suspicious dots are immediately discarded. You need to inspect tomato harvest of all fruit sizes because they sometimes come out of one fruit and get into the neighboring fruit.

I think I sometimes see them in peppers, too, different from pepper maggot flies. Occasional signs that might have been them in eggplants.

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TomatoNut95
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I don't believe I've ever had that worm invade my garden....most of what worms get my tomatoes are the stinking hornworms which do 10x more damage than that little guy. I have had trouble with the cabbage worm in the past, and this year, a species of green grasshopper.



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