The Council of Agriculture’s Miaoli District Agricultural Research and Extension Station has successfully bred a new type of black-and-white striped silkworm that is easy to keep at home.
Nicknamed “black whirlwind” (黑旋風), the silkworm only requires a sufficient amount of mulberry leaves to survive, station staff said, adding that black whirlwind is the result of years of crossbreeding between two types of silkworms by researchers.
The researchers crossbred a type of black-and-white striped silkworm that is physically weak, difficult to raise and inappropriate for school-aged children with a common, physically strong and white-colored silkworm to create the black-and-white striped and physically strong black whirlwind, station director Lu Hsiu-ying (呂秀英) said.
Photo: Wu Liang-yi, Taipei Times
The black whirlwind produces white silk, she said.
The station is conserving 136 types of domesticated silkworms, or Bombyx mori, the adults of which can be fed, she added.
As it is a species that goes through a complete metamorphosis, raising domesticated silkworms at home could help school-aged children understand the insect’s entire life cycle — egg, larval, pupal and adult stages — within one to two months, Lu said.
The council said it would introduce black whirlwind to silkworm farmers and textbook publishers.
A magnitude 4.9 earthquake struck off Tainan at 11:47am today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The hypocenter was 32.3km northeast of Tainan City Hall at a depth of 7.3km, CWA data showed. The intensity of the quake, which gauges the actual effect of a seismic event, measured 4 in Tainan and Chiayi County on Taiwan's seven-tier intensity scale, the data showed. The quake had an intensity of 3 in Chiayi City and County, and Yunlin County, while it was measured as 2 in Kaohsiung, Nantou County, Changhua County, Taitung County and offshore Penghu County, the data showed. There were no immediate reports of
Weather conditions across Taiwan are expected to remain stable today, but cloudy to rainy skies are expected from tomorrow onward due to increasing moisture in the atmosphere, according to the Central Weather Administration (CWA). Daytime highs today are expected to hit 25-27°C in western Taiwan and 22-24°C in the eastern counties of Yilan, Hualien, and Taitung, data on the CWA website indicated. After sunset, temperatures could drop to 16-17°C in most parts of Taiwan. For tomorrow, precipitation is likely in northern Taiwan as a cloud system moves in from China. Daytime temperatures are expected to hover around 25°C, the CWA said. Starting Monday, areas
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is maintaining close ties with Beijing, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday, hours after a new round of Chinese military drills in the Taiwan Strait began. Political parties in a democracy have a responsibility to be loyal to the nation and defend its sovereignty, DPP spokesman Justin Wu (吳崢) told a news conference in Taipei. His comments came hours after Beijing announced via Chinese state media that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command was holding large-scale drills simulating a multi-pronged attack on Taiwan. Contrary to the KMT’s claims that it is staunchly anti-communist, KMT Deputy
RESPONSE: The government would investigate incidents of Taiwanese entertainers in China promoting CCP propaganda online in contravention of the law, the source said Taiwanese entertainers living in China who are found to have contravened cross-strait regulations or collaborated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) could be subject to fines, a source said on Sunday. Several Taiwanese entertainers have posted on the social media platform Sina Weibo saying that Taiwan “must be returned” to China, and sharing news articles from Chinese state media. In response, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has asked the Ministry of Culture to investigate whether the entertainers had contravened any laws, and asked for them to be questioned upon their return to Taiwan, an official familiar with the matter said. To curb repeated
RSS