Tobacco Hornworm

Description:

Large green caterpillar with 7 diagonal white stripes on each side.

Habitat:

Tomato plants in a vegetable garden.

Notes:

Whenever I plant tomatoes these will inevitably show up. They have a preference for normal tomato plants over cherry tomato plants. I thought these might be the larvae of M. rustica, as I've seen adults here many a time. But all the images I've seen online show the caterpillars of M. rustica have a spiky/granular texture to the "tail", which these don't.