Truly a product that you have been waiting for.
To avoid the toxins, and because it is easier to use, there is now commercially available horn worm food which is free of the toxins found in their normal Voraciously - Manduca is Latin for "glutton." They selectively sequester and secret the nicotine, protecting them from the toxin. The hornworms, Manduca sexta, gradually adapted over time to live with the plant, eating them
Plants which are members of the Solanaceae family which produce toxicĪlkaloid-type nicotine related chemicals that protect them from most leaf eating There is an industry of exotic pets such as geckos and bearded dragons that need Leave it to business to find a market for hornworms raised on special diets.
Some time back, biologists discovered that feeding a non tomato/tobacco diet could produce blue hornworms. Now why are there blue hornworms? It has to do with a commercial market. If you add the yellow of xanthophyll, as you will recall from grade school art class, blue + yellow produces green! Unlike our red blood cells carrying hemoglobin, many invertebrates, including insects and crustaceans, transport oxygen in their blood with a chemical called hemocyanin. It can even give you carotenemia, an orange color to your skin and especially the palms of your hands if you eat excessive amounts over a long period of time. It is a carotenoid that gives carrots and fall leaves their color. When fall comes, the chlorophyll of plants breaks down, leaving another pigment called xanthophyll which gets less press. Chlorophyll is completely metabolized, leaving no trace of pigment. Why are hornworms green in the first place? Their color comes from what they eat, but surprisingly it has nothing to do with chlorophyll they consume. Given the right diet they can be a bright blue. Most people have seen tobacco or tomato hornworms, a fat bright green caterpillar with a horn decorating its rear. "You are what you eat." - Victor Lindlahr Toxin free hornworm - Picture by Addicted2hymenoptera
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