I found a bunch of hornworms of different sizes and i know they are poisonious

Turns out a LOT of chefs are using tomato leaves in their sauces. Makes for a huge tomato flavor. It also turns out the poison that people believe that is found in tomato leaves is incorrectly attributed to them from potatos.

Quote from link below "And it’s a chemical gaffe to attribute tomato toxicity to solanine. Dr. Mendel Friedman of the federal Department of Agriculture, who has studied potato and tomato alkaloids for two decades, wrote in an e-mail message that commercial tomatoes contain tomatine. Solanine, he added, is a potato alkaloid."

For an interesting read go here.

Tomato leaves may actually be HEALTHY. Quote from link above: "In 2000, Dr. Friedman and colleagues reported that when lab animals ingest tomatine, essentially all of it passes through the animal unabsorbed. The alkaloid apparently binds to cholesterol in the digestive system, and the combination is excreted — ridding the body of both alkaloid and cholesterol. The researchers found that both tomatine-rich green tomatoes and purified tomatine lowered the levels of undesirable LDL cholesterol in animals."

Tomato leaves are not nearly as dangerous as one would think. Further, ignorance is bliss! I have a client that has been taking manduca worms off her tomato plants to feed her beardies for years. She says they "love them!".

To answer your question the food you might use to raise your local Manduca is the same as for silkworns. Likely it won't work if the worms have already eaten tomato leaf. They imprint on the food they start on.
-----
AMAZON REPTILE CENTER

[ Reply To This Message ] [ Subscribe to this Thread ] [ Show Entire Thread ]