Nature Blog Network

Friday, June 13, 2008

Spinning a home soon























These caterpillars will soon spin a cocoon home for their transformation into adult domesticated silk moths. Bombyx mori have been domesticated since at least the past 4500 years. The commercial and cultural importance of these moths is immense. Sericulture is practiced around the word, and in many parts of Asia the moths are kept in attic like ceiling areas to collect the silk in village co-ops. The sale of the silk from the cocoons supplements farm or similar income. These little moths (well the caterpillar really) alo have some special powers we'll get to soon.

In the mean time, check out the development of a closely related Saturniid silk moth from egg to adult moth.

Kingdom
Animalia

Phylum
Arthropoda

SubPhylum
Hexapoda

Class
Insecta

Order
Lepidoptera

Family
Bombycidae

Genus
Bombyx

Species
B. mori


(nod of the antenna to SOFennell for the silk worm image and Miriam at The Oyster's Garter for pointing out the Saturniid series!)

4 comments:

  1. how many of these little guys slave away to deliver my brother one pair of those creepy silk boxers he wears?!?! it makes me sick.

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  2. According to one of my books here an average cocoon yields 1km of usable fibre, but it takes 8 fibres to spin together into thread...so...in one pair of boxers...oh...in excess of 100?

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  3. Obviously WELL in excess of 100! It hardly seems practical when you think about it!

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  4. Ok, so Dorid confirms somewhere north of 100, south of 1000 silk worms gave their all so your brother can cover his...... with silk.

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