Hornworm (Agrius cingulata) to tiger salamanders

[reid]

Can I feed these to my tigers? They feed on sweet potato leaves, I find them on okinowin sweet potato.

 

[joan]

I believe they're toxic due to chemicals in potato plants. Ed K would know more.

 

[reid]

I know potato leaves are toxic but what about sweet potato leaves?

 

[edward]

They should be fine as sweet potato leaf are supposed to be non-toxic. However this relates only to the ones on sweet potatos, horn worms found on tomato and tobacco plants are toxic (a different species of spinx moth).

Ed

 

[kyle]

Not to cause too much of a ruckus.... but I think its worth noting that when I used to keep a veiled chameleon a couple years back, I would feed him Tomato horn worms whenever I found them in the summer in the garden with no problems. They were probably his favorite snack.

It may have been a fluke, but on what basis do we constitute these caterpillar larva as toxic, is it anecdotal, or is there solid research?

 

[reid]

Tomato and tobacco leaves are toxic.

(Message edited by reid_h on September 22, 2006)

 

[edward]

Hi Kyle,

Tobacco hornworms can sequester nicotine (and probably other alkaloids) in their body to deter predation and parasitization.

(see the references in here http://72.14.209.104/search?q=cache:J3SaQ6blEAIJ:www.scielo.br/pdf/bjpp/v14n2/13036.pdf+tobacco+hornworm+alkaloid+predator+deterrent&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=4)

Ed

 

[roy]

It's very dangerous to say that it's not toxic for a newt if it's not toxic for a Chameleon. Different animals react totally different to certain toxins.
A lot of (for us)toxic berries are eaten by birds but on the other hand cabbage is toxic to a lot of animals.

 

[reid]

Kyle was talking about the tomato and tobacco hornworm, which he fed to his chameleon, I was talking about the sweet potato hornworm.