Earth and Space News: Mulberry Silkworms on Elementary's Whatever Remains, However Improbable

Summary: Mulberry silkworms produce silk that pulls a killer's torso wound back together on Elementary's Whatever Remains, However Improbable Sept. 17, 2018.

eggs, larvae and adult mulberry silkworm moth (Bombyx mori) with mulberry (Morus spp.) fruit, leaves and twigs; Maulbeerbaum samt Frucht (mulberry tree with fruit) by German-born Swiss naturalist and scientific illustrator Maria Sibylla Merian (April 2, 1647-Jan. 13, 1717), Der Raupen Wunderbare Verwandelung und Sonderbare Blumennahrung (1679), Band 1: Abbildung 1: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The "oh-silk on a curved needle" in the Elementary procedural drama series episode Whatever Remains, However Improbable Sept. 17, 2018, affirms Mulberry silkworm silk abilities to align gapingly wounded skin flaps accurately.

Director Christine Moore and writers Robert Doherty and Kelly Wheeler broach mulberry silkworm silk indirectly as basic bearer for surgical sutures in Season 6's 21st episode. The series' 141st episode overall considers ex-medic Denny Mulgrew's (Dan Butler) black-silk, Vietnam War-style (Nov. 1, 1955-April 30, 1975) stitches to Michael Rowan's (Desmond Harrington) chest. Adhesive sericin and fibrous fibroin in middle silk glands develop into air-hardened silk of white mulberry (Morus alba) leaf-eating mulberry silkworm caterpillars and silk cocoon-spinning pupae.

The Lepidoptera (from the Greek λεπίς, lepís, "scale" and πτερόν, pterón, "wing") order member exists in China natively and Brazil, Cambodia, India, Japan and Vietnam non-natively.

Mulberry silkworm (Bombyx mori, from the Greek βόμβυξ, bómbux, "silkworm" and μόρον, móron, "[of the blackberry or] mulberry") life cycles furnish eggs, caterpillars, pupae and moths.

Female mulberry silkworm moths get gelatinous, gluey secretions around 500-some flattened, oval-outlined yellow eggs that go on their white mulberry tree food and host plant leaves. Blue-gray-green-violet, 14-day-old, 0.039 to 0.059-inch- (1- to 1.5-millimeter-) long, 0.019-inch- (0.5-millimeter-) wide fertilized eggs hatch at 64.4 to 77 degrees Fahrenheit (18 to 25 degrees Celsius). Ant-like, black-haired, 0.14-inch- (3.5-millimeter-) long, 0.000018-ounce (0.5-milligram) hatchlings initiate the mulberry silkworm moth life cycle of four successive molts into five increasingly heavier and longer caterpillars.

The Bombycidae family member of Carl Linnaeus's (May 23, 1707-Jan. 10, 1778) descriptions in 1758 journey from first-molted pearl-gray through fourth-molted black-gray, dark-striated, velvet-black brown-yellow caterpillars.

Twenty-six- to 32-day mulberry silkworm moth larvae keep first- and second-molted schedules as 0.32-inch- (8-millimeter-) long, 0.0005-ounce (15-milligram) three-day-olds and 0.59-inch- (15-millimeter-) long, 0.0016-ounce (45-milligram) seven-day-olds.

Twelve-day-old, 1.10-inch- (28-millimeter-) long, 0.0014-ounce (40-milligram) and 18-day-old, 1.58-inch- (40-millimeter-) long, 0.06-ounce (1,600-milligram) mulberry silkworm moth caterpillars respectively launch the larval stage's third and fourth molts. Mulberry silkworm moth caterpillars move into pupal stages as black-banded, eight-legged, 13-segmented, white to white-yellow, 3.15-inch- (80-millimeter-) long, 0.34-ounce (9,500-milligram) 28-day-olds with a one-spined 11th segment. All sticky-footed molts navigate respectively 1.97- to 5.91-inch- (5- to 15-centimeter-) and 3.15- to 5.12-inch- (8- to 13-centimeter-) long-leaved white mulberry or osage orange (Macrura pomifera).

Mulberry silkworms offer one convex dot between the male caterpillar's second and third segments and one concave dot between the female caterpillar's third and next-to-last segments.

Ducts and eight head movements push labial and mandibular salivary gland-metabolized dextrin outside to air-harden into thread for orange, pink, white or yellow 0.09-ounce (2.5-gram) cocoons.

Female and male fifth-instar caterpillars queue up after two to eight-plus days into oblong cocoons of a continuous, 984.25- to 4,921.26-foot- (300- to 1,500-meter-) long thread. Chunkier, X-ended and narrower cocoons release, within 12 to 24 days, respectively female and male mulberry silkworm moths through exit holes that ravage the silken threads. Gray-white, yellow-brown moths seek neither food nor flight, despite black-combed antennae, small mouthparts and 1.26- to 1.49-inch (32- to 38-millimeter) wingspans, during three- to 15-day lifespans.

Someone else turns Michael into a corpse with mulberry silkworm-spun sutures, just as silk industrialists turn pupal cocoons into marketable, profitable silk without heat-terminated pupal corpses.

Joan Watson (Lucy Liu), garbed protectively against shedding DNA, and Sherlock Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) search for clues in home where Vietnam combat medic Denny Mulgrew sutured serial killer Michael Rowan's wounds with black silk thread in Elementary tv series' Whatever Remains, However Improbable (season 6 episode 21): CBS Elementary episode 6.21 promotional photo via SpoilerTV Sept. 15, 2018

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. London, England: George Newnes Ltd., 1892.

Ellenrieder, Natalia von; Rosser W. Garrison. "Lepidoptera (Butterflies, Skippers, and Morphs)." In: Michael Hutchins, Arthur V. Evans, Rosser W. Garrison and Neil Schlager (eds.). Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia. Second edition. Volume 3, Insects: 383-389. Farmington Hills MI: Gale Group, 2003.

Linnaeus, Carl. 1758. "Mori. 18. P. Bombyx." Systema Naturae per Regna Tria Naturae, Secundum Classes, Ordines, Genera, Species, cum Characteribus, Differentiis, Synonymis, Locis, Tomus I, Editio Decima, Reformata: 499-500. Holmiae [Stockholm, Sweden]: Laurentii Salvii [Laurentius Salvius].
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/727410

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Earth and Space News

Saturday, September 22, 2018

Mulberry Silkworms on Elementary's Whatever Remains, However Improbable

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