Horned Green Caterpillar with eggs attached? (insect, chicken, look)

[fisheye]

My mother was showing me her garden today and we spotted this on one of her tomato plants. My feeling is that the caterpillar did not lay the eggs on itself. So am I wrong or can you identify the insect responsible for laying the eggs on the caterpillar? Some of the eggs are loose on that mat that I used to take the picture.

[Heidi60]

Wasps will lay their eggs inside a caterpiller so that when they hatch they eat it from the inside out. However, I don't know what wasp eggs look like so I can't say that is what is going on here. It looks more like white flies to me.

[OwlKaMyst]

Catapillars are 'babies' and cannot lay eggs. They must first become a moth or butterfly, then they are mature and able to lay eggs.
It is hard to tell what sort of insect layed those eggs. Many insect eggs look pretty much the same. I would say that it is probably some sort of larger fly, like, but not neccissarily a horse fly.

[hellpaso]

That's a very sad tomato hornworm.

[fisheye]

Originally Posted by Heidi60

Wasps will lay their eggs inside a caterpiller so that when they hatch they eat it from the inside out. However, I don't know what wasp eggs look like so I can't say that is what is going on here. It looks more like white flies to me.

Thanks for your guess! I don't have a clue what did this. Maybe that is why some butterflies are disappearing? I should have hatched them to find out. But I gave the caterpillar and eggs to my chickens - they made short work of both. The tomato plant had withered under the caterpillar. I don't know if that was from the caterpillar - the plant also had some tomato blight.

Hopefully somebody knows what this is?

[fisheye]

Originally Posted by OwlKaMyst

Catapillars are 'babies' and cannot lay eggs. They must first become a moth or butterfly, then they are mature and able to lay eggs.
It is hard to tell what sort of insect layed those eggs. Many insect eggs look pretty much the same. I would say that it is probably some sort of larger fly, like, but not neccissarily a horse fly.

That is what I always thought. If you are right about horseflies; that could effect many butterflies?

[hellpaso]

The caterpillar is a tomato hornworm. They will eat your tomatoes down to nubs. Notice how they are the same color as the tomato leaves? And they leave giant black poop on the plant.
They don't become butterflies, but are giant hawk moths!

[Almrausch]

I found this....could that be it?

[fisheye]

Originally Posted by Almrausch

I found this....could that be it?

You have the winning number! Too bad my chickens also ate the wasp eggs! Thanks!

[OwlKaMyst]

Originally Posted by fisheye

That is what I always thought. If you are right about horseflies; that could effect many butterflies?

Probably not. This is what is called a host situation. The catapillar is the host to another creature.
Most 'hostings' are species specific.