Varieties of silkworms!!!!

[KatCham]

I've noticed, my silkworm supplier offers 3 different types of silkworm:

Bombyx mori - the normal silks

Black Silks - this black banding

Eri Silks - Erm.....these:

I'm wondering if all can be safely fed to chams??? I wonder if they have different flavours!?!? LOL

 

[ZuggieTheCham]

My suppliers sell all these too! I want to know too! Surely if they sell them in the same section they should be fine its just them eri silks look dangerous haha

 

[Branman]

The first ones are regular silkworms. The second one are commonly called zebra silkworms. I don't know what the third ones are called. I breed regular and zebra silkworms for my chameleons.

 

[KatCham]

Thanks Branman, thats good to know.

The eri silks look like stickle bricks!!! LOL

 

[Branman]

No problem. Haha yeah they look weird. I'm sure somebody here knows what kind of worm they are. They do look interesting though. I wanna touch one

 

[ZuggieTheCham]

Looking at them closely i think there just them suckers the normal silks have at the bottom of them as "feet" but all around :O!

 

[Miss Lily]

I asked about Eri silkworms a few weeks ago. They are ok to feed (as I was told in my thread) but only if you feed them the special food. They don't eat Mulberry like normal silks, they eat Privet, which is not good for chams. I didn't bother ordering any in the end, didn't think it was worth the risk.

 

[ZuggieTheCham]

....,.... ..........

 

[pssh]

As long as the eri silkworms are fed a chow (which should be available from the supplier) they are safe to feed.

The black silkworms are different than zebra silkworms. They have much thicker banding and the sexes are not visually different. They are the same species as the 'regular' silkworms.