A COMPARATIVE STUDY ON MORPHOMETRIC ANALYSIS OF ERI SILKWORM (Philosamia ricini) REARED ON CASTOR, EJAR AND PAPAYA LEAVES

Eri silkworm is the only completely domesticated non-mulberry silkworm native to India. It is traditionally reared in Assam by various ethnic groups from time immemorial. Eri silkworm is mainly reared on castor leaves, but being polyphagous insect it may be reared on other plant also. The present study is mainly to investigate the best suitable food plant of eri silkworm other than castor leaves. In our study eri silkworm was reared on castor (Ricinus communis) as control, ejar (Lagerstroemia speciosa) and papaya (Carica papaya) as experimental food plant. Regarding L. speciosa there is no any information present on it as the food plant of eri silkworm. According to local tribal people we took this plant as an experimental food plant of eri silkworm. The life cycle of the eri silkworm were studied and different larval instars were observed in three different trays in which the larva were fed by 3 different food plant (control and two experimental plants). A comparative morphometric study was revealed by using different morphological parameters. We already knew that castor is regarded as the primary food plant of eri silkworm, so the cocoon quality and silk production is very high but from the experiment it was found that ejar also can give a better cocoon quality and silk production. This article is based on a comparative study among the castor, ejar and papaya.