Unlike the domesticated relative which is unable to fly or indeed persist outside human care, the wild silk moth is a fairly ordinary lepidopteran.

However, this is based on an untenable molecular clock hypothesis that assumes that wild and domestic silk moths evolved equally fast after their lineages diverged.

[1] Conceivably, today's domestic silk moths are all descended from an initial stock of B. mandarina collected as far back as 5,000 years ago.

[1] While wild silk could have been collected and used as threads, etc., since much earlier, the technology to breed and use silkworms from a domesticated stock did not exist before the late Neolithic.

However, today it is usually recognized that the domestic silk moth is entirely dependent on human care for its survival and thus has a level of reproductive isolation from its wild relatives.