Cocoons

My silkworm cocoons.

I have no recollection from childhood of this massive variation in the colour of the cocoons. I seem to remember them all being dark yellow? I thought that the way to change their silk colour was to feed them other leaves, like beetroot for red and cabbage to white.



Hymenoptera (bees, wasps).
Silkies are Lepidoptera
(butterfly, moth family)

My silkies all ate the same leaves and they lived in the same box under the same conditions. They started spinning way before their siblings, who a guy from work kept. There were hundreds of them! I think that mine got so big and started to spin first was because I had a small number in a big box - 'goldfish' effect perhaps?

There was no correlation between first spinners and later spinners and the colour of the cocoon. It's quite remarkable. Also, the worms were all big and yet some (lazy buggers) spun small cocoons. 

My little friend and I were reading up on the web this week on what was happening inside the cocoon. Yes, that big word... metamorphosis! Silkworms undergo a complete metamorphosis, which is called holometabolism. We learned the difference between a pupa and a chrysalis too.

And, we learned what happens to all those silkworm pupa that are 'left over' when the cocoons are used for silk. Yes, they're eaten - steamed, boiled, fried, canned... Known as beondegi, they're a popular snack food (for entertainment, try a Google Images search on beondegi).

Now we wait for the moths to emerge. The first should be out this week. Amazing what happens in two weeks! An incredible transformation and re-engineering. It's got me thinking of the 80's movie, The Fly.