Why does silkworm like mulberry leaves the most?

About 18 million years ago, there was a species of mulberry tree on Earth. Mulberry trees, which grow in hot and humid areas, are green trees all year round. After coming to the temperate zone, they gradually become deciduous trees.

Mulberry is a tall tree, leaves grow both big and lush, on Earth there are many insects that live on parasitic leaves, some eat roots, some eat twigs, some eat sprout. Leaf-eating, silkworm is a leaf-eating insect.

In addition to mulberry leaves, there are also cassava leaves, fig leaves, and willow leaves .

Did silkworm eat leaf mulberry since childhood?Not certain , as of now, known plants that silkworms can eat a lot, in addition to mulberry leaves, there are cassava leaves, fig leaves, willow leaves, dandelion leaves, oa leaves (chrysanthemum), lettuce leaves, onion leaves, Brahmin leaves . But mulberry leaves are the most favorite silkworms, because the time silkworms take mulberry leaves as food to live the most , due to birth It has produced many descendants on mulberry leaves, gradually formed the habit of eating mulberry leaves, and has turned into genetics.

There is a chemist who once analyzed the smell in mulberry leaves. After he dried the mulberry leaves through a high temperature of 132 ~ 157 ⁰ C, an oily substance was obtained in a test tube. It is volatile, giving off a peppermint-like odor, smelling it on paper, and silkworms beyond 30cm can smell it. After silkworm smell this smell will crawl very quickly. It can be seen that this is the most familiar signal of silkworms.

Silkworms rely on the olfactory organ to differentiate the smell of mulberry leaves. If they damage these olfactory organs and taste buds, they cannot tell the smell of mulberry leaves. So they have no choice, and can eat as many leaves as they want.

In the process of researching on silkworm artificial food for several years, people have basically found out what nutrients are essential for the development of silkworms and their lowest amount. Thus, just need to find alternative foods containing some of these nutrients, after silkworm can eat and grow healthy as usual.

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