Silkworm City Timeline

day 1

Silkworm Eggs — Silkworm eggs on Day 1.

day 5

Silkworm Eggs — Silkworm eggs after 5 days under the heat lamp.

day 6

Silkworms Hatching — Silkworms started hatching on day 6.

Silkworm Hatching — Lots more silkworms hatched by that night.

Silkworm Hatching — It was time to move them into a larger container.

day 9

Silkworm 2nd instar — At this point, they've entered the 2nd instar and have already grown about 20 times since they hatched.

day 21

Silkworms Growing — They were growing so fast I had to move them into a larger box!

Silkworms Growing — At this size, the silkworms are in their 3rd to 4th instar and have grown between 120-732 times there starting size!

day 26

Silkworms — Starting to look like ‘space shuttles’.

day 30

Silkworms — Too many to count!

day 31

Silkworms — Separated by size so the little ones had a fair chance at getting food.

day 35

Silkworms — Can hear them eat and it sounds like raindrops on the roof or a rain stick.

Silkworms — Their medicinal poop!

Silkworms — So many different sizes or instar phases.

Silkworms — Group of the littlest ones.

day 36

Silkworms — The largest ones needed a larger home to roam and eat.

Silkworms — Always eating.

day 37

Silkworms — Biggest and littlest.

Turn up the volume! Is that rain?

day 42

Silkworms — The biggest weighed in at 4.4 grams.

day 43

Silkworms — And he was just shy of 3” long. Had to use a fresh leaf to keep him focused and somewhat still.

day 44

Silkworms — Moving into their cocoon apartments.

Silkworms — The housing is filling up!

Silkworms — Taking over the dining room table.

Silkworms — Egg cartons make great cocoon apartments.

day 45

Silkworms — Toilet paper rolls cut in half also work really well.

Silkworms — They actually work better if you want to watch them up close as they cocoon.

day 46

Silkworms — Housing shortages led to cocooning on the wall.

Silkworms — 155 grams was just one of their meals that day.

Silkworms — Peek-a-boo!

Silkworms — You can see how they become translucent and yellow when they are in their silk spinning mode.

Silkworms — His fake feet are super sticky. I would turn my hand upside down and they didn’t fall off!

day 49

Silkworms — Just another day in Silkworm City!

Silkworms — There is always something happening in Silkworm City.

Silkworms — Showing off meditation pose. See those dots along the silkworm caterpillar's side? Those are spiracles and that is how they breathe.

Silkworms — On the road again, gotta keep moving.

Silkworms — Still cocooning.

Silkworms — Really filling up.

Silkworms — Big and small.

Silkworms — Fewer silkworm caterpillars (larvae), many cocoons.

day 50

Silkworms — Look close at that dark line down his back... it’s his circulatory system pulsating.

Silkworm circulation. Look closely for the black pulsating line down its back.

day 51

Silkworms — Looking up.

Silkworms — Starting to get quiet in the city.

Silkworms — Super crowded.

day 55

Silkworms — First silkworm female moth emerged!

Silkworms — First silkworm male moth emerged!

Silkworms — A married couple and a male eagerly waiting for a female to emerge from her cocoon.

Silkworms — So happy together.

day 61

Silkworms — The ‘dancehall’ where couples go.

Silkworms — The ‘nursery’ where the females go to lay their eggs. See how yellow they are when they are freshly laid.

A time-lapse video of a silk moth emerging from its cocoon.

Time-lapse video of a silkworm spinning its cocoon. This process takes about 24 hours. We had to leave the lights on to film.

day 64

Silkworms — In process of emerging.

Silkworms — A cleaned up and organized cocoon city.

A male silk moth eagerly searches for a female.

day 65

Silkworms — The latest to emerge from their cocoons.

day 68

Silkworms — The are so fury and silky soft.

Silkworms — Keeping the cycle going.

A female silk moth laying her eggs.

day 74

Silkworm eggs — Silkworm eggs in different stages of drying.

day 81

Silkworms — They lived out their life cycle, Complete Metamorphosis, to the fullest and now they have passed on and are chicken food.

day 83

Silkworms — The range of cocoon sizes. The biggest one is a double meaning two silkworm caterpillars spun up together.

Mulberry tree — My mulberry tree. Home and food to many creatures, medicine for man and shade for my family. This tree made Silkworm City possible!