Introduction: The life of a silkworm baby is divided into four stages: egg, larva, pupa and moth. The newly hatched silkworm is called one-year-old silkworm. Because it is dark and small, it is also called ant silkworm. During this period, the young silkworm will molt four times, each time it will grow a little bigger, and its body will grow bigger, thicker and whiter. After molting for four times, it becomes a fifth instar silkworm. At that time, silkworm babies ate mulberry leaves for a few days and then spun silk and formed cocoons.
Silkworm is a LEPIDOPTERA insect that feeds on mulberry leaves, and cocoon-forming silkworm is one of the economic insects. Silkworm originated in China. As early as four or five thousand years ago, our ancestors planted mulberry and sericulture, which is recognized as one of the great discoveries in the world.
The growth process is as follows:
1. Silkworms just hatched from eggs are black and hairy, like ants, called ant silkworms. Ants and silkworms grow up eating mulberry leaves. After a while, it couldn't eat or move, as if people were sleeping and entered the first sleep. After a day or two, it shed a layer of skin and began to eat mulberry leaves, and its body continued to grow. Repeat this four times to reach maturity.
2. Silkworms not only grow fast, but also tend to be dense. Therefore, before each leaf feeding, the seats should be spread out and evenly distributed. After feeding the leaves, the area of the silkworm seat should be properly adjusted with leaves, so as to achieve "three silkworms in one place", which is beneficial to the growth and development of silkworms. Silkworm babies slowly turn white after eating mulberry leaves, and begin to peel after a period of time. When peeling, they don't eat or move like sleeping for about one day. This is called "dormancy".
The spring silkworm has a good climate, high leaf quality and good cocoon quality, and it is easy to obtain a high cocoon yield, which generally accounts for about 40% of the total cocoon yield in the whole year. Therefore, raising spring silkworms well is the key to increase the income of silkworm farmers and complete the task of annual cocoon production. Although the climate is good, there are few pathogens and the leaves are of high quality in the spring silkworm period, silkworm diseases will also occur in the late spring silkworm period if the disinfection of silkworm utensils in the silkworm house is neglected.
Young silkworms need to feed young leaves, and big silkworms need to feed old leaves properly, because young silkworms need enough cellulose to spin silk and cocoon. If mulberry leaves contain dew, they need to be dried before feeding. If the mulberry leaves turn black and moldy, don't feed the silkworm babies. If the ambient temperature is too low, it is suggested to buy a heating lamp to heat the silkworm baby, so that the silkworm baby can be raised all year round.
3. Silkworm has a pair of special organs called silk glands. Mature silkworms are transparent and full of silk. It binds itself by turning its head to spin silk, closes its body, sheds its skin again after spinning silk, and becomes a peanut-sized pupa, unable to eat or move, curled up in a cocoon. 10 days later, the pupa turned into a moth and emerged from the cocoon.
4. After the cocoon hatches, the tail of the female moth will emit a smell to lure the male moth to mate. After mating, the male will die. It takes a female moth about one night to lay about 500 eggs, and then she will die slowly. It takes about a month from the first sleep to the fourth sleep. So the life span of silkworms is very short, almost more than a month.
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According to documents and cultural relics, our ancestors began to plant mulberry and raise silkworms as early as the Neolithic Age more than 5,000 years ago. The utilization of silk began at the end of the fishing and hunting era, and sericulture began at the beginning of the agricultural era, that is, the Yellow Emperor era.
In the Zhou dynasty (BC 1066 ~ 256), sericulture became specialized and was managed by official inspectors. By the Warring States period (476 ~ 22 BC1), silk had reached a high level of development and became the daily clothing of the poor and the material of free trade.
Many silk fabrics of the Warring States period have been unearthed in China, including Luo, Ling, Wan, Yarn, Crepe, Qi, Brocade, Embroidery and other products, and their patterns and colors are amazing.
During the Song and Yuan Dynasties (960 ~ 1368), silk production and silk weaving reached another peak, and the annual output of silk in the Song Dynasty reached 3.4 million. The rulers attached equal importance to silk industry and agriculture.
There is often a record of "farming and mulberry simultaneously" in China ancient books. The idiom "women don't silkworm, women get cold" reflects the ancient people's high understanding of sericulture.
Baidu encyclopedia: silkworm