Day Thirty Six, Week 6

One sure sign, in my opinion, that a silkworm is about to commence spinning its cocoon, is when it starts to climb the walls - literally.

Like the one above did late last night.

I removed the larva from the its tank and placed it in a shoe box with some cut down egg cartons.

It eventually found itself a nice little niche. 

I've turned the carton over so the silkworm could be photographed.

I want to keep the cocoons separated from the larvae as much as practical.

It wasn't long before the adult silkworm had settled in and started cementing itself into a space under the egg carton.

Here is the resulting cocoon not twenty four hours from when the top photograph was taken.

It's still the only cocoon so far.

On the right you can see a white-ish stain on the cardboard.  This is a fluid emitted by the larvae just before it begins to spin.  

Another sign that the silkworm is about to start spinning its silk cocoon is that it stops eating.

Because of the awkward position of the cocoon I couldn't take a close up of the beginning of the spin.

With the light behind the cocoon, the adult silkworm could still be seen spinning from side to side even when this last photograph was taken about thirty minutes ago.