Bombyx mori with the opportunity to witness the life cycle of silkworms. The practice of raising silkworms by children as pets has, in non-silk farming South Africa, led to the development of extremely hardy landraces of silkworms, because they are invariably subjected to hardships not encountered by commercially farmed members of the species. However, these worms, not being selectively bred as such, are possibly inferior in silk production and may exhibit other undesirable traits. The full genome of the silkworm was published in 2008 by the International Silkworm Genome Consortium. Draft sequences were published in 2004. The genome of the silkworm is
Flacherie Flacherie Flacherie (literally: "flaccidness") is a disease of silkworms, caused by silkworms eating infected or contaminated mulberry leaves. Flacherie infected silkworms look weak and can die from this disease. Silkworm larvae that are about to die from Flacherie are a dark brown. There are two kinds of flacherie: essentially, infectious (viral) flacherie and noninfectious ("bouffee") flacherie. Both are technically a lethal diarrhea. Bouffée flacherie is caused by heat waves ("bouffée" means "sudden heat spell" in French). Viral flacherie is ultimately caused by infection with "Bombyx mori" infectious flacherie virus (BmIFV, Iflaviridae), "Bombyx mori" densovirus (BmDNV, Parvoviridae) or "Bombyx mori" cypovirus