What's eating my Thai peppers?

[JC's Garden]

Pulled off a few damaged peppers over the last couple of days. Just on one plant. Pulled these off today. I'm about to cut these open to see what I find, if anything. Anyone had this happen before?

[applestar]

No damage to the leaves? If there were, maybe hornworms could also be suspect for the ones with huge chunks eaten?

When I found perfectly round holes like that in peppers before though, culprits turned out to be Climbing Cutworms. I found a little one curled up in the hole and a big one trying to skidaddle it's way down the plant just after dawn.

Sometimes. I find slugs INSIDE the peppers with holes like that, but not sure if they made the holes or they happened to find the hole to climb into.

[JC's Garden]

I've been surfing the web like crazy. The closest answer I found was 'pepper maggots'. I even dissected the ones you saw. Found nothing. Consistent with pepper maggots. Those holes were emergence holes, so I shouldn't have found anything. I've isolated the one plant they were on. It's sitting on plastic so they will dehydrate if they fall on it. When the plant is through, I'll sift through the soil for pupa. I would put a shoulder shrug I on here if I had one.

[Lindsaylew82]

I agree, Looks a lot like hornworm damage to me.

[JC's Garden]

I'm starting to think I might be seeing damage from two different pest. It may be both hornworms (the two where the flesh was eaten) and pepper maggots (the small stings at the base with an exit hole near the middle of the pepper). Thanks for the input guys. I'll be keeping a close eye on all my peppers and post an update if I can find the culprits.

[Francis Barnswallow]

Like mentioned before, it could be climbing cutworm damage. From what I experienced, they only come out at night around 10 pm. They were busy in my neck of the woods so far this year, especially on my bell peppers.