Very Hungry Caterpillars

Some of you may be endeared to Eric Carle's book The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  I'm in that stage of life where I probably have it memorized.

Nonetheless I do not think real caterpillars are cute.  I squish them at every chance.

For caterpillars will eat my veggies, herbs or flowers if given the chance.  I'd rather they eat a cupcake (like in the book and get a tummy ache.)

Recently I've squished two caterpillars in my garden.

The first one looked like the dreaded tomato horn worm in miniature form.  If you squint just right you can see it on the tip of my finger.  I picked it from my tomato plant and it appears to have a horn growing from its head.  However, I've never seen one quite this small.  I squished it anyway.  No caterpillar is a good caterpillar in my book.

source

FYI - tomato horn worms can do a LOT of damage to your tomatoes in a little bit of time.  A friend of mine suggests going to the garden at night with a flashlight to find and squish them.  They like to hide in the day and munch at night.

According to this site, the below caterpillar is a kind of moth (scroll to the bottom of the page.)  I found it on a pepper plant.