Moth Spit

This chapter reviews how silk, the fabric of royalty, begins as threads of sticky secretions from a moth’s salivary glands—moth spit, in other words. But not just any moth, the domestic silkworm, the result of centuries of selective breeding of the ancestral wild silk moth. As the chapter explains, silk is produced today in much the same way as it was thousands of years ago when Chinese households formed a network of producers. It also shows how silk, although just one fabric with a long history, was for centuries reserved for royalty. Its beauty and appeal led to uses that ranged from robes created for emperors to serving as currency, literally worth its weight in gold and used to pay for both fealty and extortion. The story of silk is the story of humanity.

EFFECT OF FEEDING WITH HERB OF ERYTHRINA VARIEGATA TO BIOCOMPATIBILITY OF THE COCOON FIBER OF WILD SILK MOTH ATTACUS ATLAS FOR FUTURE APPLICATION AS BIOCOMPATIBLE OF SILK SUTURES

Objectives: Silk is biocompatible as biomaterial and has been used commercially as sutures. More interesting properties of the silk are that the mechanical properties exceed all natural polymer and synthetic materials. In this research, a type of silk suture is being developed from species of Attacus atlas to obtain better biocompatible sutures. A. atlas is a species of silk moth that consume not only single types of leaves. The Quality of cocoon fiber then can be arranged base on the types of the leaves that is consumed. Better biocompatibility sutures comparing with recent commercial silk sutures which is not biocompatible, can be achieved by feeding with variety types of leaves. Silk suture that already established in the market is a base product of Bombyx mori species of silk which is only consume one type of leaf (mulberry leaves).Methods: In this research, the A. atlas cocoon was produced by feeding with herb Erythrina variegate. The microstructure was observed, element composition as well as biocompatibles properties was investigated.Results: A high composition of kalium (K) as well as chloride (Cl) is identified in the fiber. The released fiber from cocoon also indicates high biocompatibility that is promising as biocompatible suture.Conclusion: The biocompatible fiber for future application as sutures is possible to be prepared by feeding the wild silkworm of A. atlas with leaf of E. variegate. The fiber is found rich with kalium (K) as well as chloride (Cl) with irregular shape of crystal at the surface of the fiber.

Fine-scale abundance and distribution of wild silk moth pupae

Although several factors influence herbivore insect distributions at any particular scale, the most important determinants are likely to differ between species with different life histories. Identifying what these factors are and how they relate to life history forms an important component of understanding the population dynamics of species, and the habitat requirements necessary for their conservation. The pupal stage of two wild silk moth species, Gonometa postica Walker and G. rufobrunnea Aurivillius (Lepidoptera: Lasiocampidae), is the target of harvesting practices that are totally dependent on the availability of pupae from natural populations. Consequently, and partly due to poor knowledge of the species' biology, there is substantial interest in the distribution of pupae among and within trees for both these species. It was investigated whether between- and within-tree pupal distributions in these two species are non-random, and if so, whether there are relationships between pupation site use and tree characteristics such as tree size, available pupation space and branch position. Between-tree patterns in pupal abundance were random in terms of absolute spatial position, but markedly non-random with respect to tree characteristics. The apparent G. postica pupae were aggregated on large larval host plants, whereas the cryptic G. rufobrunnea pupae were aggregated on non-host plants. These patterns reflect the life history differences of the two species. In contrast, at the within-tree scale, branch position, aspect and tree shape influenced pupation site choice similarly for both species. These patterns might be related to microclimate. Documenting between-tree and within-tree patterns in Gonometa pupal distributions is the first step towards explaining pupation site selection, as well as identifying possible evolutionarily selective factors in the species, and generating testable hypotheses from these.