Dragon Robes home page The Sad, Short, and Hungry Life of the Silkworm Previous | Next

Commercial silkworms are raised from larvae hatched from tiny eggs and fed mulberry leaves that have been cut into small pieces. The larvae grow quickly into caterpillars.

The caterpillars, which do not seem to grow tired of their never-changing diet of mulberry leaves, continue to munch on ever-larger pieces of mulberry. During their first twenty-four hours, young caterpillars consume several times their weight in mulberry leaves. In three days, time they change from black to white, and within four weeks grow to 10,000 times their birth size. When their silk glands are full of liquid, their appetite decreases and they anchor themselves in preparation to begin spinning their cocoon. The process of spinning a cocoon takes about three days. Sericin, natural glue produced by the caterpillar, holds the silk strands together.

At this point the cocoons–and the caterpillars within them--are placed in boiling water, which softens the sericin and loosens the thread. Needless to say, this process is fatal to the caterpillar. The thread is then unwound, or "reeled." An average cocoon produces a single strand of silk half a mile long. Some caterpillars are allowed to mature to become moths and are then used for breeding.

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