Several kinds of wild silk, which are produced by caterpillars other than the mulberry silkworm, have been known and used in China, South Asia, and Europe since ancient times.
22.
The leaves are used as food by " Antheraea paphia " ( silkworms ) which produce the tassar silk ( Tussah ), a form of commercially important wild silk.
23.
The cocoon shells of wild silk moths are toughened or stabilized either by tanning ( cross-linking ) or by mineral reinforcements ( e . g . calcium oxalate ).
24.
Recently, a new method has been developed, demineralizing, which can remove the mineral reinforcements present in wild silks and enables wet reeling like the commercial silkworm " Bombyx mori ".
25.
There are significant indications in the literature that wild silks were in use in Persia and in Greece by the late 5th century BCE, apparently referred to as " Amorgina " or " Amorgian garments " in Greece.
26.
The leaves of " Madhuca indica " ( = " M . longifolia " ) are fed on by the moth " Antheraea paphia ", which produces tassar silk, a form of wild silk of commercial importance in India.
27.
The larvae of a wild silk worm " Anaphe venata " are being consumed in a rain forest district of Nigeria as a supplemental protein nutrition, and the heat resistant thiaminase in it is causing an acute seasonal cerebellar ataxia.
28.
"We often see that things are becoming rare, but it's difficult to know why, " said Dr . Michael Collins, an evolutionary biologist with the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh and an author of " The Wild Silk Moths of North America ."
29.
The species has become notable for producing a fine quality wild silk in its demineralizing using a warm solution of EDTA ( ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid ), softening the cocoons by dissolving the sericin, permitting the silk to be unravelled with no appreciable loss of strength.
30.
The originating source seems sufficiently reliable, but silk degrades very rapidly, so it cannot be verified whether it was cultivated silk ( which would almost certainly have come from China ) or a type of " wild silk ", which might have come from the Mediterranean region or the Middle East.
