What's Eating My Tomato Plants?

Almost overnight, my flourishing tomato plant morphed into a mass of defoliated twigs. The dastardly devourer of my beloved tomato plant has appeared throughout the years in my vegetable garden as the ultimate master of disguise. It is the larva of a hawk moth, commonly known as the tomato hornworm. Besides being difficult to spot, it can consume an entire plant quickly if left alone. Today, I picked off 9 of these monsters of varying sizes, some as large as 4 inches long! If their population continues to flourish on my tomato plants, I may have to resort to spraying with Spinosad, but so far, I have been able to spot them, pry them off their foliar buffet and save them for my grandson's chickens - an appropriate punishment for attacking my tomato plant and an apt metaphor for the circle of life.