Hornworm

Tom was glad to see that the tomato hornworm on his tomato plant now had the eggs of a parasite attached to its back, because that meant it would soon be dead and no longer eating his tomatoes.

The project, part of a wave of interest in life-imitating robotics, is a collaboration of seven Tufts faculty members from five departments in the schools of engineering and arts and sciences. Dr. Trimmer comes from the field of neurobiology, where he has been studying the tobacco hornworm, Manduca sexta, since 1990.