The silkworm belongs to the order. silkworm insect
Silkworm- well known insect. The wild species of this species was first seen in the Himalayas. The silkworm has been domesticated for a very long time - from the third millennium BC.
He gained great fame in connection with the unique ability to create such cocoons, which are the raw material for obtaining real silk itself. Systematics of the silkworm- belongs to the genus Silkworms of the real family of the same name. Silkworm is a representative detachment butterflies.
The main habitat of the insect is the regions of Southeast Asia with subtropical climate. It also occurs on Far East. Silkworms are bred in many regions, but the only requirement is that mulberry must sprout in those places, since silkworm larvae feed exclusively on it.
An adult is able to live only 12 days, during which it does not eat, since it does not even have a mouth. Surprisingly, silkworm butterfly can't even fly.
Pictured is a silkworm butterfly
As can be seen on photo, silkworm looks rather unattractive and looks like the most common moth. Its wingspan is only 2 centimeters, and their color varies from whitish to light gray. It has a pair of antennae, which are abundantly covered with bristles.
Lifestyle of the silkworm
The silkworm is a well-known garden pest, as its larvae are very voracious and can greatly harm garden plants. Getting rid of it is not so easy, and for gardeners the appearance of this insect is a real disaster.
Silkworm life cycle includes 4 stages and is about two months. sedentary and live only to lay eggs. The female lays up to 700 eggs, which are oval in shape. The laying process can take up to three days.
Types of silkworm
Nun silkworm living in the forest. Wings black and white, antennae with long serrations. Reproduction occurs once a year, in summer. Caterpillars are very harmful coniferous trees, beech, oak and birch.
Butterfly silkworm nun
Ringed - bears this name because of characteristic form masonry - in the form of an egg. The clutch itself contains up to three hundred eggs. It is the main enemy of apple trees. The body of the butterfly is covered with a light brown fluff. ringed silkworm- it is his cocoons that are the main raw material for the production of silk.
Butterfly ringed silkworm
Pine silkworm- Pine pest. The color of the wings is brownish, close to the color of pine bark. Quite large butterflies - females reach a wingspan of up to 9 centimeters, males are smaller.
Pine silkworm butterfly
gypsy moth- most dangerous pest, as it can infect up to 300 plant species. The name is due to the large difference between the female and male in appearance.
Gypsy moth butterfly
Nutrition of the silkworm
Feeds mainly on leaves mulberry tree. The larvae are very voracious and grow very quickly. They can eat figs, breadfruit and dairy trees, ficuses and other trees of this species.
In captivity, lettuce leaves are sometimes eaten, but this has a bad effect on the health of the caterpillar, and therefore on the quality of the cocoon. IN this moment scientists are trying to create a special food for the silkworm.
Reproduction and life span of the silkworm
Reproduction in this insect takes place in the same way as most others. Between the time the female lays her eggs and the first appearance of the caterpillars, about ten days pass.
With artificial breeding, a temperature of 23-25 degrees is set for this. Silkworm caterpillar each subsequent day eats more and more food.
Pictured are silkworm caterpillars
On the fifth day, the larva stops feeding, freezes, and the next day, when it emerges from the old skin, it starts feeding again. Thus, four molts occur. At the end of development, the larva is one month old. Under her lower jaw is the same papilla from which a silk thread stands out.
silkworm thread, despite its very small thickness, can withstand up to 15 grams of cargo. It can be isolated even by newly born larvae. Very often it is used as a saving tool - in case of danger, the caterpillar can hang on it.
In the photo, a silkworm thread
At the end life cycle the caterpillar feeds little, and by the beginning of the construction of the cocoon, feeding stops completely. At this time, the gland that secretes the silk thread is so full that it always reaches for the caterpillar.
At the same time, the caterpillar exhibits restless behavior, trying to find a place to build a cocoon - a small branch. The cocoon is built within three to four days, and it takes up to a kilometer of silk thread.
There are cases when several caterpillars twist one cocoon for two, three or four individuals, but this rarely happens. Myself silkworm cocoon weighs about three grams, has a length of up to two centimeters, but some specimens reach a length of up to six centimeters.
Pictured is a silkworm cocoon
They vary slightly in shape - it can be round, oval, ovoid or slightly flattened. The color of the cocoon is often white, but there are specimens whose color is close to golden, and even greenish.
The silkworm hatches in about three weeks. It does not have a jaw, so it makes a hole with saliva, which eats away at the cocoon. With artificial breeding, the pupae are killed, otherwise the cocoon damaged after the butterfly is not suitable for obtaining silk thread. In some countries, the slaughtered chrysalis is considered a delicacy.
Silkworm breeding is widespread. To do this, mechanized farms are created for the production of yarn, from which a real yarn is subsequently obtained. silkworm silk.
Pictured is a silk thread farm
The clutch of eggs laid by the female is kept in an incubator until the larvae appear. As food, the larvae receive the usual food - mulberry leaves. In the premises, all air parameters are controlled for the successful development of the larvae.
Pupation occurs on special branches. When creating a cocoon, males secrete more silk thread, so silkworm breeders try to increase the number of males.
Silkworm, or silkworm, caterpillar and butterfly, which play an important economic role in silk production. The caterpillar feeds exclusively on mulberry (mulberry) leaves. A closely related species, the wild silkworm lives in East Asia: in the northern regions of China and the southern regions of the Primorsky Territory of Russia.
The silkworm is the only fully domesticated insect (and all the rest in China have already been imported domesticated, not found in nature in the wild. Its females have even “forgotten” how to fly. An adult insect is a fat butterfly with whitish wings up to 6 cm in span. Dried caterpillars infected with a fungus Beauveria bassiana are used in Chinese traditional medicine.
Silkworm caterpillars curl cocoons, the shells of which consist of a continuous silk thread m long and up to 1500 m in the largest cocoons.
Caterpillars eat leaves non-stop day and night, which is why they grow very quickly. A change in the color of the caterpillar's head to a darker one signals the beginning of a molt. After the caterpillar has gone through four molts, its body becomes slightly yellow, and the skin becomes denser, which indicates that the caterpillar begins to turn into a chrysalis, wrapping itself with silk thread. After passing through the pupal stage, the butterfly gnaws through the cocoon and emerges. But the silkworm is not allowed to live to this stage; the cocoons are kept for 22.5 hours at a temperature of about 100 ° C, which kills the caterpillar and simplifies the unwinding of the cocoon.
Silkworm in art In 2004, the famous multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and leader of his own group Oleg Sakmarov wrote a song called "Silkworm". In 2006 Flëur released a song called "Silkworm". In 2007, Oleg Sakmarov released the album "Silkworm". In 2009, the Melnitsa group released the album "Wild Herbs", on which a song called "Silkworm" sounds.
Butterflies, thanks to which people have the opportunity to wear silk things, appeared on the planet a long time ago. Back in the fifth millennium new era silkworm cocoons were used by humans.
Wild silkworm, without knowing it, played a big role in the history of states ancient world. You can learn about it from the video.
In our time, the range of use of the insect is very wide. Fried larvae and pupae are considered a delicacy in Korea, a delicious dish that they rush to feed guests, although Europeans do not consider them a delicacy. The larvae contain a large number of protein, which is why they are so popular among gourmets.
In addition, the larvae are used to obtain medicines, in cosmetology, medicine, and the list goes on.
The leaders in the production of silk are India and China, the mulberry tree is found almost everywhere here, so the silkworm has all the conditions for its growth. Unfortunately, there are many more silk connoisseurs than those who are interested in this nondescript, but very hardworking insect.
Let's look at the features, characteristics of the insect, the process of reproduction and try to answer the question - what role does the silkworm play in human life.
What does an insect look like
The mulberry tree, or mulberry, is the only habitat for the silkworm. Caterpillars are so gluttonous that in one night a tree can be left without leaves, therefore, in horticultural farms, special attention is paid to preserving trees from insect invasion. Silkworm farms are always surrounded by hectares of mulberry plantations. On an industrial scale, this tree is grown in compliance with all norms and requirements in order to provide insects with good nutrition.
We owe the appearance of silk to caterpillars and butterflies, but in order to understand how an insect lives, you need to consider the whole process of its development.
The life cycle of an insect consists of the following stages:
- adult moths mate, after which the female lays many small eggs (larvae);
- little dark caterpillars emerge from the eggs;
- the caterpillar lives on the mulberry, eats its leaves and grows rapidly;
- caterpillars create silkworm cocoons, after a while the caterpillar is in the center of a cocoon of silk threads;
- a chrysalis appears inside the skein of threads;
- the chrysalis becomes a moth that flies out of the cocoon.
This process is interesting and continuous, like many other natural cycles.
You can learn interesting facts from the life of an ancient insect, which for many centuries was equated with gold by its value, by watching the video.
The butterfly is white, with dark spots on the wings, large, its wingspan is 6 centimeters. In females, the whiskers are almost invisible, in males they are larger.
Butterflies have lost the ability to fly over the years, and besides, they can easily do without food. They have become so “lazy” thanks to a person that their life is unthinkable without the guardianship and care of a person. Caterpillars, for example, are unable to find their own food.
Silkworm varieties
Two types of silkworm are known to modern science.
The first type is called monovoltine . The larvae appear only once.
The second type is called polyvoltine. More than one offspring appears. 
Butterfly
Hybrids also have external differences. They differ in the color of the wings, the shape of the body, the size of the pupa and butterflies. Caterpillars also have a different color and size. The possibilities of genetics have no limits, there is even a breed of silkworm with striped caterpillars.
What are the performance indicators?
Productivity indicators are:
- the number of cocoons, mostly dry;
- do they unwind easily;
- how much silk can be obtained from them;
- quality and other characteristics of silk threads.
Caterpillar Let's talk about grena
Grena is nothing more than silkworm eggs. They are small, oval in shape, slightly flattened on the sides, covered with an elastic shell. The color of grena changes from light yellow to dark purple, if the color does not change, this indicates that they have lost their viability.
Grena ripens for a long time, somewhere from mid-summer to spring. In winter, metabolic processes are much slower, this allows her to safely winter. The caterpillar must hatch ahead of schedule otherwise, due to the lack of mulberry leaves, she is threatened with death. Eggs can overwinter in the refrigerator, at temperatures from 0 to -2C.
Grena Meet the silkworm caterpillar
Caterpillars, or, as they used to be called, silk worms (photo below) look like this:
- elongated, like all worms, the body;
- the head, abdomen and chest are clearly defined;
- small horns on the head;
- chitinous covers protect the body and are muscles.
Silkworm caterpillar The caterpillar appears small, but viable, its appetite grows, so the size increases rapidly. She eats around the clock, even at night. Passing near the mulberry trees, you can hear a kind of rustling - these are the small jaws of voracious caterpillars. But their weight is not constant, because they drop it four times in their life. A huge amount of muscle allows the caterpillars to demonstrate real acrobatic stunts.
Watch the video and see for yourself.
For forty days, the body of the caterpillars increases significantly, they stop eating and molt, clinging to the leaf with their paws, they become motionless.
Photo of a caterpillar during sleep. Touching the caterpillar can interfere with the natural cycle, it will die, so you can not touch them. Shedding four times, they change their color four times. Silk is produced in the silk gland of caterpillars.
There was a chrysalis, but a butterfly appeared
It doesn't take long for cocoons to form. The caterpillar flies out of it like a butterfly. After molting, the caterpillar becomes a chrysalis, after which it becomes a butterfly.
You can learn from the video how caterpillars turn into a butterfly.
Before the flight of the butterfly, the cocoons begin to move, a slight noise is heard inside, this is the rustling of the chrysalis skin, which the butterfly does not need. They appear only in the morning hours - from five to six in the morning. With a special sticky substance, they dissolve part of the cocoon and get out of it.
No one considers them beauties, which cannot be said about their domestic relatives.
Butterflies have a short life - no more than 20 days, but sometimes they live for a whole month. Mating and laying eggs are their main occupation, they neglect food, since they have no opportunity to absorb and digest food. But there is no doubt about the strength of gluing grena to a tree or a leaf.
That's all short life worker - a silkworm, almost five thousand years of benefit to man.
Information for the curious!
- Besides the fact that the insect cannot fly, it is also blind.
- It takes only three or four days to create a cocoon, but during this time a silk thread 600-900 meters long is obtained. There are cases when the unwinding thread was 1500 meters long. In terms of strength, a silk thread can be compared with steel, their diameter is the same, and it is not so easy to break the thread.
- The quality of a silk product can be judged by its color, the lighter it is, the better. Silk fabrics cannot be bleached.
- Moths and mites that can ruin clothes do not pose a threat to silk fabrics. And the explanation for this is a substance that is in the saliva of an insect, it is called sericin. To this should be added the fact that silk has one more advantage - its hypoallergenic properties. Elastic and durable threads have found application not only in the textile industry. They are used in medicine, aviation and aeronautics.
Description
Relatively large butterfly with a wingspan of 40 - 60 mm. The color of the wings is off-white with more or less distinct brownish bands. Forewings with notch on outer margin behind apex. The antennae of the male are strongly pectinate, the females are pectinate. Silkworm butterflies, in fact, have practically lost the ability to fly. Females are especially inactive. Butterflies have underdeveloped mouthparts and do not feed throughout their lives (aphagia).
Life cycle
The silkworm is represented by monovoltine (gives one generation a year), bivoltine (gives two generations a year) and polyvoltine (gives several generations a year) breeds.
Egg
After mating, the female lays eggs (500 to 700 on average), the so-called grena. Grena has an oval (elliptical) shape, flattened laterally, somewhat thicker at one pole; soon after its deposition, one depression appears on both flattened sides. At the thinner pole there is a rather significant depression, in the middle of which there is a tubercle, and in the center of it there is a hole - a micropyle, designed for the passage of the seed thread. The grain size is about 1 mm long and 0.5 mm wide, but it varies considerably depending on the breed. In general, breeds of European, Asia Minor, Central Asian and Persian give a larger gren than Chinese and Japanese. Egg laying can last up to three days. Diapause in the silkworm falls on the egg stage. Diapausing eggs develop in the spring of the following year, while non-diapausing eggs develop the same year.
Caterpillar
A caterpillar comes out of the egg (so-called silkworm), which grows rapidly and molts four times. After the caterpillar has gone through four molts, its body becomes slightly yellow. The caterpillar develops within 26 - 32 days. The duration of development depends on the temperature and humidity of the air, the quantity and quality of food, etc. The caterpillar feeds exclusively on mulberry (tree) leaves. Therefore, the spread of sericulture is associated with the places where the mulberry tree (mulberry) grows.
While pupating, the caterpillar weaves a cocoon, the shell of which consists of a continuous silk thread ranging in length from 300-900 meters to 1,500 m in the largest cocoons. In the cocoon, the caterpillar turns into a chrysalis. The color of the cocoon can be different: pinkish, greenish, yellow, etc. But for the needs of industry, only silkworm breeds with white cocoons are currently bred.
The release of butterflies from cocoons usually occurs on the 15-18th day after pupation. But the silkworm is not allowed to survive to this stage - the cocoons are kept for 2-2.5 hours at a temperature of about 100 ° C, which kills the caterpillar and simplifies the unwinding of the cocoon.
Human use
Sericulture
Sericulture- breeding of silkworms to obtain silk. According to Confucian texts, silk production using the silkworm began around the 27th century BC. e. , although archaeological research allows us to talk about the Yangshao period (5000 BC). In the first half of the 1st century A.D. e. sericulture came to ancient Khotan, and at the end of the 3rd century came to India. It was later introduced to Europe, the Mediterranean and other Asian countries. Sericulture has become important in a number of countries such as China, Republic of Korea, Japan, India, Brazil, Russia, Italy and France. Today, China and India are the two main producers of silk, accounting for about 60% of the world's annual production.
Other uses
In China and Korea, fried silkworm pupae are eaten.
Dried caterpillars infected with a fungus Beauveria bassiana used in Chinese traditional medicine.
Silkworm in art
- In 2004, the famous multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and leader of his own group Oleg Sakmarov wrote a song called "Silkworm".
- In 2006 Flëur released a song called "Silkworm".
- In 2007, Oleg Sakmarov released the album "Silkworm".
- In 2009, the Melnitsa group released the Wild Herbs album, on which a song called Silkworm sounds.
Notes
| domesticated animals | |
|---|---|
| Homemade | |
| Exhibition | |
| farm animals | |
| mammals | |
| Birds | |
| Insects | |
Categories:
- Animals alphabetically
- Animals described in 1758
- real silkworms
- farm animals
- Pets
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010 .
Synonyms:See what "Mulberry silkworm" is in other dictionaries:
- (Votbuh mori), this butterfly. real silkworms (Bombycidae). Wingspan 40-60 mm, whitish. The body is massive. According to the number of generations per year, monovoltine (one), bivoltine (two), and polyvoltine (many) breeds of T. sh. Wintering... ... Biological encyclopedic dictionary
Silkworm, silkworm Dictionary of Russian synonyms. silkworm n., number of synonyms: 2 silkworm (2) ... Synonym dictionary
Butterfly of the true silkworm family. Not known in the wild; domesticated in China c. 3 thousand years BC e. to get silk. Bred in many countries, mainly in the East., Wed. and Yuzh. Asia. A close view of the wild silkworm lives in ... ... Big encyclopedic Dictionary
Butterfly. Caterpillar T. sh. called a silkworm, feeds on the leaves of the mulberry tree, curls a silk-rich cocoon, for the sake of getting a horn and gets divorced. Silkworm (: 21/2): 1 caterpillar; 2 dolls; 3 cocoon; 4 female laying eggs. ... ... Agricultural dictionary-reference book
Butterfly of the true silkworm family. Wingspan 4 6 cm, massive body. It feeds (caterpillar) on mulberry leaves. Not known in the wild; domesticated in China around 3000 BC. e. to get silk. Bred in many countries, ... ... encyclopedic Dictionary
- (Bombyx mori) butterfly of the family Bombycidae. Wingspan 4 6 cm; has an underdeveloped mouth apparatus and does not feed. Caterpillar G. sh. feeds on mulberry leaves (See Mulberry) (or mulberry tree); inferior substitutes for it ... ... Great Soviet Encyclopedia
Bombyx mori (silkworm, silk moth) silkworm, silkworm. Lepidoptera insect
- (Bombyx s. Sericaria mori) a butterfly belonging to the silkworm family (Bombycidae) and bred for the silk that is obtained from its cocoons. The body of this butterfly is covered with dense fluff, the antennae are rather short, comb-like; wings are small... Encyclopedic Dictionary F.A. Brockhaus and I.A. Efron
Silkworm or Silkworm
A silkworm is called a silkworm caterpillar. He is from the family of true silkworms, which has about a hundred species. Their caterpillars weave a cocoon of silk: in it, the transformation of a chrysalis into a butterfly takes place. Some have so much silk in their cocoons that by skillfully unwinding it, one can obtain threads suitable for making fabrics. Coarse varieties of silk are obtained from the cocoons of the Chinese oak peacock eye and some other silkworms (philosamia, telea). The best silk, however, comes from the silkworm. This butterfly is a real pet, it is completely dependent on the person. Not like bees, which, even without people in wild nature they can live well.
Where does the silkworm come from and who is its wild ancestor?
Many researchers believe that his homeland is the Western Himalayas, some areas of Persia and China. The mandarin theophila butterfly lives there, darker in color than the silkworm, but generally similar to it, and most importantly, can interbreed with it, giving hybrid offspring. Perhaps the Chinese began to breed this butterfly in ancient times, and after thousands of years of skillful selection, a silkworm was obtained - in the human economy, the most useful insect after the bee. Artificial silk successfully competes with natural silk today, and yet the annual world production of silk obtained from the silkworm amounts to hundreds of millions of kilograms.
When, how long ago did they start breeding silkworms? The legend tells: 3400 years ago, a certain Fu Gi made musical instruments with strings of silk threads. But the real cultivation of the silkworm and the constant use of its silk for the production of fabrics began later: about four and a half thousand years ago. As if Empress Xi Ling Chi was the initiator of this useful work (for which she was elevated to the rank of deity, and this significant event was celebrated annually with ritual holidays).
At first, only empresses and women of high rank were engaged in the production of silk. They kept the secrets of this business in secret. “For more than 20 centuries, the Chinese jealously guarded the monopoly of silk and protected it with laws that punished by death or torture anyone who sought to take the miraculous silkworm egg abroad or divulge the secret of breeding and unwinding cocoons” (J. Rostand).
Twenty centuries is a very long time, hardly any other secrets have been kept for so long. But sooner or later, the secret ceases to be a secret. This is what happened with sericulture. Whether it was true or genda, ancient texts say that in the 4th century AD, a Chinese princess brought her husband, the ruler of Bukhara, an invaluable marriage gift - silkworm eggs. She hid them in her intricate hairstyle.
In the same century, sericulture began to develop in some parts of India. From here, apparently (this story is probably known to many), Christian monks carried silkworm eggs and seeds of a mulberry tree in hollow staffs, the leaves of which are fed by caterpillars that produce precious silk. The eggs brought by the monks to Byzantium did not die, caterpillars hatched from them and cocoons were obtained. But later, the sericulture started here withered and only in the 8th century flourished again in the vast territory occupied by the Arabs, from Central Asia to Spain.
“The main centers of sericulture are located in Central Asia and Transcaucasia. Their position is determined by the distribution of the host plant, which is the mulberry tree (mulberry). The lack of cold-resistant mulberry varieties hinders the advancement of sericulture further north” (Professor F.N. Pravdin).
The leaves of this tree silkworms eaten with a loud crunch, which Pasteur likened to "the sound of rain falling on the trees during a thunderstorm". This is when there are a lot of worms and they all eat. And by the end of their larval life they eat continuously - day and night! And in any position: squeezed by neighbors, lying on their backs, on their sides, and everyone eats and eats - they eat as much greenery in a day as they themselves weigh.
They eat and grow. A tiny caterpillar emerges from the egg, about three millimeters long. And after 30-80 days, the silkworm that has completed its development is already 8 centimeters long and a centimeter thick. It is whitish, pearl or ivory. On his head he has six pairs of simple eyes, tactile antennae and, most importantly, what made him so valuable in the human economy - a small tubercle under the lower lip. A sticky substance oozes from the hole at its end, which, when it comes into contact with air, immediately turns into a silk thread. Later, when he spins a cocoon, we will see how this natural silk spinning works.
The silkworm, strictly speaking, eats only the leaves of the mulberry tree. We tried to feed him with other plants: blackberry leaves, for example, or lettuce. He ate them, but grew worse, and the cocoons were not the first grade.
So, eating at first the soft parts of the leaves, and then, when it matures, the veins, even the petioles, the silkworm grows rapidly. In the first days, it doubles its weight every day, and during its entire larval life it increases 6-10 thousand times: before pupation, it weighs 3-5 grams - more than the smallest mammals, some shrews and bats.
Frozen and hard as glass, the worm does not die. If you warm it up, it comes to life, eats calmly again and later weaves a cocoon. But in general, he is warm-hearted. The most favorable temperature for him is 20-25 degrees. Then it grows rapidly: its larval life, if there is enough food, is 30-35 days. When it is colder (15 degrees) - 50 days. It is possible in 14 days to make him complete all the processes necessary for the caterpillar to grow and prepare for transformation, if you feed it abundantly and keep it at 45 degrees Celsius.
10 days after the last, fourth molt, the appetite of the worm is no longer the same as before. Soon he stops eating altogether and starts crawling around uneasily...
