The Very Hungry (and scary) Caterpillar

I may have mentioned that I planted a few tomato plants this year. I may also have mentioned that a few of the plants have, in fact, actually produced some tomatoes.
A few weeks ago I started to notice that something had eaten the leaves off my carrots. Not the actual carrots themselves, just the leafy parts above the ground. After some concern, I decided that, as long as the actual roots were intact and kept growing, there was nothing to worry about. I thought is was these gold beetles eating them, as I'd seen a few of them.

But then my tomato leaves started disappearing. Seriously, whole leaves. Nothing but a green stem and some green branches holding a few tomatoes was left on one plant. Another plant had half a green tomato left. There simply weren't that many beetles.
I was watering my poor plants, wondering what I was going to do, what animal was getting this close to the house, how I would protect the plants, when I noticed something. My mind couldn't make sense of it at first. It was like a clump of cherry tomatoes, but grown so close together that they merged to form one long strand of.... wait, it wasn't on the cherry tomato plant, it was a regular tomato plant. One without the leaves. It was.... THE BIGGEST CATERPILLAR I HAD EVER SEEN.
This isn't the actual caterpillar we found. It is one just like it I found off the internet, but it will give you some idea of how huge this monster was.
It's important to know that it's huge, because then I sound less crazy when I tell you this next part. I ran inside and got Steve to get rid of it for me. I was afraid to touch it, because I was afraid it was going to bite me. I mean, this thing was as long and thick as a hot dog. A huge, thick, green, lumpy hot dog with stripes and dots. And if it's able to finish off half a beefsteak tomato, imagine what it would do to my hand!