Last week, a child from Mrs. Roach's class brought in a tomato hornworm which looked like it was covered with grains of rice.
The little white objects are actually the cocoons of a parasitic wasp, which lays its eggs inside of the tomato hornworm. When the eggs hatch, the wasp larvae eat the caterpillar from the inside out. Soon after emerging from the caterpillar's body, they make small cocoons. Mrs. Roach took the hornworm home with her this weekend so she could let us know if anything happened. I can't wait to share the update I heard from her with the kids! As gross as this process may sound, they really enjoyed hearing about it and watching a video of what happens on YouTube. I had never seen them so excited!
This video by National Geographic explains the process:
This video shows the type of cocoons found on our caterpillar:
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