Tobacco Hornworm

About the Tobacco Hornworm

Their caterpillars can consume their own body weight in leaves every day. They are a major model organism in neuroscience - their nervous system is large enough to study individual neurons. They can eat nicotine-rich tobacco leaves that would kill most other animals, and excrete the nicotine in their waste. They use nicotine in their breath as a defense - it repels wolf spiders. Adult moths (hawk moths) hover like hummingbirds and have a 10 cm proboscis. They are used extensively in scientific research.