Bombyx mori Bombyx mori The silkworm is the larva or caterpillar of the domestic silkmoth, Bombyx mori (Latin: "silkworm of the mulberry tree"). It is an economically important insect, being a primary producer of silk. A silkworm's preferred food is white mulberry leaves, though they may eat other mulberry species and even osage orange. Domestic silkmoths are closely dependent on humans for reproduction, as a result of millennia of selective breeding. Wild silkmoths are different from their domestic cousins as they have not been selectively bred; they are not as commercially viable in the production of silk. Sericulture, the practice of breeding
Müller's larva Müller's larva Müller's larva or Mulleria is a larva of some Polycladida. It has 8-fold symmetry and is somewhat like a ctenophore. Müller’s larva is ciliated and has several paired and unpaired lobes. The cilia on the lobes are longer than cilia on the rest of the body. At the anterior and posterior ends of the larva are tufts of longer cilia (apical and caudal). The apical tuft originates from the apical organ, a sensory structure associated with the central nervous system. It is named after Johannes Peter Müller (1801-1858), a German physiologist who invented the plankton net, and first