Bombyx mori (silkworm)

Scientific name: Bombyx mori

An insect belonging to the Bombycidae family of moths is the domestic silk moth. It is nearest
relative to Bombyx mandarina, the wild silk moth. The caterpillar or larva of a silk moth is a
silkworm. Being the main producer of silk, it is a significant insect from an economic
perspective.
Silkworms are native to northern China. They are totally dependent on humans; there are no
more wild populations.
Other moths known as silkworm moths include the giant silkworm moths. The larvae of these
large moths also spin silken cocoons, but they are less widely used for commercial silk
production In addition to its economic importance from applications in agribusiness, Bombyx
mori is the main lepidopteron used in scientific research as a genetic resource capable of
elucidating a wide range of biological problems
The larvae of B. mori are caterpillars that are about 4 cm long, with a horned tail, have tiny hairs
but later in stars are white, nude. In the process of producing a cocoon, the caterpillars
manufacture an insoluble protein (fibroin) in their silk glands, mix it with a smaller amount of
soluble gum and secrete the mixture to get a single, continuous silk fiber of some 300 to 900
meters long. The cocoon may be white to yellow in color. The adults are moths with a 4 cm
wingspan and have thin brown lines on their whole bodies (Herbison-Evans 1997) that emerges
is heavy bodied, furry, rounded.  They eat and are primarily concerned with reproduction.
Another silkworm, Bombyx mandarina, appears to be a wild race of B. mori (Savela 1998).

The body is distinctly divisible into three regions, namely head, thorax, and abdomen.
The head bears a pair of compound eyes, a pair of branched or feathery antennae and the
mouth parts. The thorax bears three pairs of legs and two pairs of wings. The entire body is
covered by minute scales.
Females have about twice to three times the bulk of males (for they are carrying many eggs) but
are similarly colored. They lay about 300 to 500 eggs, which hatch within roughly 7 to 14 days
when kept at temperatures of 24 to 29 °C (about 75 to 85 °F). Adults cannot fly.
The caterpillars feed on leaves of mulberry trees, with the preferred food being the white
mulberry.
The female B. mori has a pheromone-secreting gland on the top of its abdomen, which is
essential to the species' mating ritual. Males start to "flutter dance" when females release their
pheromones. This facilitates the meeting of men and women. One trillion males would be
drawn to a female in just a few seconds if her gland released all of her pheromones at once
(Pines 1997). The males' larger, more plumed bodies, which entice the females, are also
significant during the mating ritual (Lepidoptera Part 2 1997).

Life Cycle
The life cycle of mulberry silkworm completes in 45-55 days, consists of stages egg, larva, pupa,
and moth. The egg stage lasts for 9-10 days, larval stage which is 24-28 days, pupal stage 8-10
days, and moth stages 3-4 days.
Bombyx mori are holometabolous and reproduce sexually. The female adult dies upon
depositing her eggs (Encarta 1998). These eggs weigh in at a miniscule 1/30,000 of an ounce
each (Knowledge Adventure 1997). After 10 days, the eggs hatch and hungry larvae emerge.
They are segmented and have body hair. The larvae eat and grow for approximately 6 weeks,
and then they begin the next stage of their lives.
Bombyx mori produce a fluid in their silk glands that is forces through spinnerets on their
mouths. This fluid hardens in the air to produce the silk thread that they will wrap around
themselves to form their cocoons. Bombyx mori spend 2 weeks as pupae in the safety of their
cocoons before emerging as adults (Encarta 1998). Inside the cocoon, much of their bodies die
by an attack of their own digestive juices. This process, histolysis, clears away the old parts to
make way for the new ones that will develop in this pupal state. After this process is completed,
the adults break free from the cocoon to begin the cycle again. The adults are winged and have
traded body hair for scales. They are dramatically different from their larval stage (Lepidoptera
Part 2 1997).
3-Eggs take about 14 days to hatch into larvae, which eat continuously. They are not monophagous,
They are covered with tiny black hairs. When the color of their heads turns darker, it indicates they are
about to molt. After molting, the larval phase of the silkworms emerge white, naked, and with little
horns on their backs.

After they have molted four times, their bodies become slightly yellow, and the skin becomes
tighter. The larvae then prepare to enter the pupal phase of their lifecycle, and enclose
themselves in a cocoon made up of raw silk produced by the salivary glands. The final molt from
larva to pupa takes place within the cocoon, which provides a vital layer of protection during the
vulnerable, almost motionless pupal state.
cocoon
The cocoon is made of a thread of raw silk from 300 to about 900 m (1,000 to 3,000 ft) long. The
fibers are very fine and lustrous, about 10 μm (0.0004 in) in diameter. About 2,000 to 3,000
cocoons are required to make 1 pound of silk (0.4 kg). At least 70 million pounds (32 million kg)
of raw silk are produced each year, requiring nearly 10 billion cocoons.

Eggs:
The eggs of the domesticated silkworm are very small and are initially lemon-yellow but later
turn black (Grzimek et al. 2004). They take about ten days to hatch.
 Each female can lay 300 to 400 small, smooth, sub-spherical yellowish eggs, either in
free or agglutinated conditions. The eggs are tiny and weigh around 2,000 grams.
 They measure 1 to 1.3 mm in length and 0.9 to 1.2 mm in width. The eggs of European
races are larger and heavier.
Silkworm eggs are of two types:
(a) Hibernating eggs: Deposited in spring, which undergo diapauses and hatch out only in next
spring.
(b) Non-hibernating eggs: Derived from successive generations without any pause in a year.
 The egg contains a good amount of yolk and is covered by a smooth hard chitinous shell.
After laying the eggs, the female moth does not take any food and dies within 4-5 days.
 In the univoltine (a single brood per year) they may take months 7 because over-
wintering takes place in this stage but the multivoltine broods come out after 10-12
days. From the egg, mulberry leaf hatches out a larva called the caterpillar.

Larvae:
Eggs when first laid are bright yellow in color and under the influence of suitable temperature,
embryonic development takes place and the color changes from yellow to brown, then to grey.
In summer, the eggs hatch in 10 days. After development is completed, the newly hatched
caterpillar is black or dark brown.
It has a large head, and the body is rough, wrinkled and densely covered with bristles so that it
looks like a hairy caterpillar and is polypod type.it is about 4 to 6 mm in length.
full grown larva is 6 to 8 cm in length. The body of the larva is divisible into a prominent head,
distinctly segmented thorax and an elongated abdomen. The head bears mandibulate
mouthparts and three pairs of ocelli.
A distinct hook-like structure, the spinneret, is present for the extrusion of silk from the inner
silk gland.
The thorax forms a hump and consists of three segments. Each of the three thoracic segments
bears pair of jointed true legs.
The tip of each leg has a recurved hook for locomotion and ingestion of leaves. The abdomen
consists of ten segments of which the first nine are clearly marked, while the tenth one is
indistinct.
The 3’ 4’ 5″ 6″ and 9″ abdominal segments bear ventrally a pair of unjointed stumpy
appendages each.
These are called prolegs or pseudo legs. Each leg is retractile and cylindrical. The eighth
segment carries a short dorsal anal horn. A series of respiratory spiracles or ostia are present on
either lateral side of the abdomen.
The larval life lasts for 3-4 weeks (30-40 days).
During this period, the larva moults four times. After each moult, the larva grows rapidly. A full-
grown larva is about 8.00 cm long and becomes transparent and golden brown in appearance.
A pair of long sac-like silk-glands develops into the lateral side of the body inside. These are
modified salivary glands. The little caterpillar, immediately after hatching begins to consume
30,000 times its own weight of mulberry leaves and grows rapidly.

Pupae:
 The full-grown larva now stops food and locomote and if given a suitable place, such as
dried bushy plants or Bamboo mountage (Chandrika), they soon begin to spin their
cocoons.
 This takes about 3 days of constant moves from side to side at the rate of about 65 per
minute. The cocoon is formed from a secretion from two large silk glands which are
transformed salivary glands.
 These extend along the inside of the body and open through a common duct of the
spinneret on the lower lip. As the clear viscous fluid is exposed to the air, it hardens into
the fine silk fiber.
 Each silk gland extrudes a fine filament of pulpy material called brin or fibroin and two
such brins are stuck together by sericin or silk gum in the spinnerette to form a single
continuous fiber known as the seric bane about 500 m long and 0.02 mm wide.
Temperature and humidity influence the speed of spinning and the quality of silk.

Adult:
 Within the cocoon the pupa shrinks in length and in about 10-15 days a full-fledged
moth emerges through an opening in the end of the cocoon.
The cocoons from which the moth emerges are called pierced cocoons. They are of low
value because they cannot be reeled, but they are carded and made into thread. The
ashy-white moth has a fat body and wing expanse of about 5 cm.
It takes no food and rarely attempts to fly but has high capacity for reproduction.

References

1998. Encarta Concise Encyclopedia Articles. http://encarta.msn.com