Weird Bug Thing on my tomato

I was pulling weeds today, along with the geese, when I noticed a Very Strange Something (VSS) on on of my tomato plants.
I, of course, quickly took pictures of it.

In person it vaguely resembles what you might find if you somehow crossed a Caddis Fly larvae with some sort of chrysalis, then maybe turned the whole thing into an alien.
It has the remnants of what must have been a caterpillar, is kind of unusually long - longer than any of my fingers - and full of something biological.
I left it alone with the idea that it was a Weird Bug Thing and a Very Strange Something. It wasn't actively hurting my plants, and seemed to be either dead and/or transitioning into something else. It does have claspers that are attached to the plant.

As I said, it seems vaguely insect-like, but is very obviously Not Normal. It could be a wasp victim, but it's definitely unusual.
Please, if it looks like anything to you, let me know! Many thanks!

Yeah ... it's dark now, or I'd get a better picture. If it's still there in the morning, I'll see if I can get it in focus.
You can see the "head" end. And it looks rather like a very unhealthy multicolored bean pod.
I promise it's not a cryptid, as far as I know, so I'll try to do better in the morning.

Truthfully, without seeing tomorrow's photos, it looks a bit like something illustrator H.R. Giger would come up with for Ridley Scott's "Alien" blockbuster film franchise..

... ;-)

If you happen to be up later in the evening, just take a glimpse at it with a flashlight to make sure it's not noshing on your tomato plant.  Hopefully his/her intentions are either innocuous or beneficial but it would be sad to assume and guess wrong.  Good luck!

looks like a hornworm that’s been hollowed out by beneficial wasp larvae. it is fuzzy, but you can see the ‘horn’ near the top.

I was wondering if it is just going into a chrysalis stage or coming out of it.

nope, gone fully into ‘dead’ phase!

greg mosser wrote:looks like a hornworm that’s been hollowed out by beneficial wasp larvae. it is fuzzy, but you can see the ‘horn’ near the top.

It's very evocative of Annie Dillard's hollowed out frog via Giant water bug in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
"He was a very small frog with
wide, dull eyes. And just as I looked at him, he slowly crumpled and began to sag. The spirit
vanished from his eyes as if snuffed. His skin emptied and drooped; his very skull seemed to
collapse and settle like a kicked tent. He was shrinking before my eyes like a deflating
football. I watched the taut, glistening skin on his shoulders ruck, and rumple, and fall. Soon,
part of his skin, formless as a pricked balloon, lay in floating folds like bright scum on top of the
water: it was a monstrous and terrifying thing. I gaped bewildered, appalled. An oval shadow
hung in the water behind the drained frog; then the shadow glided away. The frog skin bag
started to sink."

Yeah, I'm thinking it was a hornworm (there is a "horn" on the bit attached to the tomato plant) that got hollowed by wasps or something.
It looks like there's something going on inside the thing, and the bits that are recognizable as being previously caterpillar are slowly detaching.

So - multiple life cycles in one space! Yay Science!

Mercy Pergande wrote:

greg mosser wrote:looks like a hornworm that’s been hollowed out by beneficial wasp larvae. it is fuzzy, but you can see the ‘horn’ near the top.

It's very evocative of Annie Dillard's hollowed out frog via Giant water bug in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
"He was a very small frog with wide, dull eyes. And just as I looked at him, he slowly crumpled and began to sag. The spirit
vanished from his eyes as if snuffed. His skin emptied and drooped; his very skull seemed to collapse and settle like a kicked tent. He was shrinking before my eyes like a deflating
football. I watched the taut, glistening skin on his shoulders ruck, and rumple, and fall. Soon, part of his skin, formless as a pricked balloon, lay in floating folds like bright scum on top of the
water: it was a monstrous and terrifying thing. I gaped bewildered, appalled. An oval shadow hung in the water behind the drained frog; then the shadow glided away. The frog skin bag
started to sink."

That's so descriptive!
I'm used to seeing insect shells - cicada, mostly - and have had experience with some heavy parasite loads that were very "educational", but I have never seen this type of late stage infestation.
Very cool! I encourage the wasps (as long as they leave me alone I leave them alone) for just this reason. I'm glad they accept the terms of our treaty.