keeping silkworm as a pet
have always been intrigued by this sign along neo tiew lane 3 - the road leading to the kranji golf course. the sign says: singapore zoo. but, how is this possible? the zoo is at mandai and kranji is a long way from mandai. is it possible that this road leads all the way to the zoo?
decided to check it out today. parked my car at the barrier and took a walk along the stretch of road. it was actually a short stretch. it led to a nursery and some of the trees that are planted there reminded me of those days when we used to keep caterpillars as pets. after checking, i can only conclude that the plot of land has been leased to the singapore zoological gardens.
among other plants, there are at least two plots devoted to the growing of mulberry trees. wonder why they grow mulberry trees in singapore. is it food for silkworms?
back in the late 50s or early 60s, i remember there was this craze of keeping silkworms as pets. i kept a few and many of my classmates and schoolmates were also into it. we would take the pets to school and compare their development. fortunately for me, my neighbour, the one who had a jambu mawar tree, also had some mulberry plants. silkworms will eat mulberry leaves only.
could only remember keeping them up to the pupa stage and after that, no idea what became of the cocoons. cannot remember much about silkworm except for the fact that it is white and it has a short anal horn. the adult worm is about 5cm long and it does not need to be fed every day.
4 comments:
I think you have found what was the original venture to set up a Singapore Zoo. I read somewhere that the venture went bust but the owners have kept hold of the name and will not sell it. This is why the present zoo is called the Singapore Zoological Gardens as they cannot infringe the copyright of the owners. I'll see if I can find where I read about it. It might have been one of Chun See's blogs or Laokokok.
it seems 'singapore zoological gardens' is now known as singapore zoo.
you took a short break? notice there were no postings by you on 17, 18 and 19 august.
Ah .... Neo Tiew Rd. If you could find some way to measure the amount of sweat deposited there, you wiil find at least one bucket belonging to LCS. Back in my NS days, did so many route marches, withdrawals and even gotong royong there. Used to be a well-inhabited stretch with even a community centre there. Now it's all deserted. Shd blog about it one day.
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