Silkworms

Appearance

Newly hatched silkworms look like thin pencil lines drawn on paper. Over the next four to five weeks they quickly grow into smooth, creamy white worms about six to eight centimetres long with shiny noses and yellow blood. On larger silkworms it is possible to see eight pairs of legs, claspers and a beating heart. Silkworms, like all insects, do not have lungs and breath through small holes in the sides of their body.

Food
Silkworms natural food plant is the mulberry tree. An artificial diet has been developed to facilitate cultivation of silkworms. If you do not have a mulberry tree available, you must purchase the artificial diet.

Habitat
Today, the silkworm moth lives only in captivity. Silkworms have been domesticated so that they can no longer survive independently in nature, particularly since they have lost the ability to fly. All wild populations are extinct, although presumably old relatives exist in Asia.

Interesting Behaviors
Silkworms have been used by researchers to study pheromones or sexual attractant substances. The pheromones are released by female moths and the males detect the chemicals with olfactory hairs on their antennae. This allows the male to find the female for mating. The male antennae are made of many small hairs to increase the chances of picking up small amounts of the pheromones over long distances.

Lifespan

2 months.

Sources:

http://www.burkesbackyard.com.au/factsheets/Others/Silkworms/2185
http://insected.arizona.edu/silkinfo.htm