July 7, 2026
On June 25, the ordered tomato hornworm hunting equipment arrived. On and off, we’ve had many hungry, hungry caterpillars munching away on the tomato leaves and green fruit.
Those of you who have experienced the joys of trying to find the hidden tomato hornworms want a better way to find them.
Bruce and I have watched videos with people using a black light flashlight to spot hornworms. After some research, we decided it was worth a try. Why does shining black light on hornworms make them glow? Tomato hornworms have fluorescent pigments in their skin and internal organs. Their internal organs can be seen through the skin. The fluorescent pigments react to ultraviolet (UV) light, absorbing the black light wavelength and then emitting it as a visible spectrum wavelength. This causes the glowing effect.
With the hungry, hungry hornworms hiding in the tomato jungle, we needed something to help us find the munching caterpillars.
I ordered a black light flashlight and two UV protection goggles.
Here is one pair of UV protection goggles.
Once evening came, it was time to hunt. We put on the goggles, grabbed the black light, and headed to the garden to try out our new weapon against hornworms. You can just see the sunset in the background over the house.
The new hunting equipment works!
Blackberry Homestead 
Amazing!
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I was amazed!
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Amazing as well as gross and disgusting! I hate killing those things. They’re almost as big as a mouse. Do you have a special soapy water concoction to drop them into, or do you sent them to worm heaven manually? 🐛
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I sent them to worm heaven by stepping on them. Bye, bye worms 🐛
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I always use the baseball method. A big wind up and then the pitch against the wooden fence. The size of the green blood splat tells me if it was a fastball, curve or slider.
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All that green alien blood, just like Mr. Spock.
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👍
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Wow! Who would have thought! Good luck!
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We have found many hornworms with our new equipment!
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I’ve never heard of such a thing!
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I was excited to see it works!
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What a great tool for sniffing out those buggers!
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It works great if you can get under the leaves.
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I use blacklights all the time from looking for sneaky dog pee spots (urine fluoresces), finding garden bugs like your friend the future Sphinx moth and tracking signs of backyard visitors like possums.
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It does work a treat!
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Reminded me of the Glow-worm toy phase. “Glow little glow-worm, glimmer, glimmer”
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Oh, I hadn’t thought of that commercial since they stopped running it. How funny that your words bring it back to me!
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