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Bombyx mori, commonly known as the domestic silk moth, is a moth species belonging to the family Bombycidae. It is the closest relative of Bombyx mandarina , the wild silk moth. Silkworms are the larvae of silk moths.
The best-known species is Bombyx mori , or domestic silk moth, native to northern China and domesticated for millennia. Another well-known species is Bombyx mandarina , also native to Asia. Taxonomy
Bombyx is the genus of true silk moths or mulberry silk moths of the family Bombycidae, also known as silkworms, which are the larvae or caterpillars of silk moths. The genus was erected as a subgenus [ 2 ] by Carl Linnaeus in his 10th edition of Systema Naturae (1758).
Commercially reared silkworms of the species Bombyx mori (Linnaeus, 1758) are normally killed before the pupae emerge, either by pricking them with a needle or dipping the cocoons into boiling water, thus allowing the whole cocoon to be unravelled as one continuous thread. This allows a much finer cloth to be woven from the silk.
A silkworm, Bombyx mori, feeding on a mulberry tree. Mulberry leaves, particularly those of the white mulberry, are ecologically important as the sole food source of the silkworm (Bombyx mori, named after the mulberry genus Morus), the cocoon of which is used to make silk. [27] [28] The wild silk moth also eats mulberry.
Silk is a naturally produced fibre obtained from many species of the silk moth. In 1700 the favoured silk was produced by a moth (Bombyx mori), that spun a cocoon to protect the larvae. The larvae fed on mulberry leaves grown in Italy. Silk fibres from the Bombyx mori silkworm have a triangular cross section with rounded corners, 5–10 μm wide.
Bombyx mandarina and the domesticated Bombyx mori constitute two of the currently identified eight species of the genus Bombyx, the true or mulberry silk moths. The origin of the domestic silk moth is enigmatic. It has been suggested that it is the survivor of an extinct species that diverged from the ancestors of Bombyx mandarina millions of ...
Bombyx mori Linnaeus, 1758 Note: an exotic species maintained in domestic situations only for the silk trade; native to China; Bombyx lugubris (Drury, 1782) (= Theophila lugubris (Drury, 1782) sensu Hampson, 1892) Bombyx huttoni Westwood, 1847