Tomato is one of the most important vegetable crops cultivated all over the world. Because of its value growers often apply pesticides too often in order to protect their investment. This often leads to development of insect resistance, environmental contamination, worker and food safety issues and poor management of pests. The key to any successful pest management program is to develop a regular scouting plan to gain information on insect pest populations that may be used to determine if insecticide applications are needed. Monitoring can consist of sampling groups of 10 plants which are randomly selected at 5-8 different locations in a field. Samples should be distributed throughout the field so that plants near the edges and middle of the field are examined. In recent years there has been a great increase in new control technologies available to growers, this makes management of insect pests in tomatoes an ongoing process. The new insecticides generally act against a narrower range of pest species than the older, broad-spectrum materials. Therefore, it is critical to properly identify the pest to be controlled and to determine its potential for damage. The only way to obtain this information is through routine scouting. The purpose of this work is to serve as a reference for insect pest identification.
