Sericulture

This species of silkmoth is no longer found in the wild as they have been modified through selective breeding, rendering most flightless and without defense against predators.

Sericulture has become an important cottage industry in countries such as Brazil, China, France, India, Italy, Japan, Korea, Russia, and Thailand.

[1] In 1977, a piece of ceramic created 5400–5500 years ago and designed to look like a silkworm was discovered in Nancun, Hebei, providing the earliest known evidence of sericulture.

In 1147, during the Second Crusade, Roger II of Sicily (1095–1154) attacked Corinth and Thebes, two important centres of Byzantine silk production, capturing the weavers and their equipment and establishing his own silkworks in Palermo and Calabria,[7] eventually spreading the industry to Western Europe.

The silkworms are fed with mulberry leaves, and after the fourth moult, they climb a twig placed near them and spin their silken cocoons.

Single filaments are combined to form thread, in a process called "throwing", which is drawn under tension through several guides and wound onto reels.

The primary factor that makes this form of silk more ethical is that moths are permitted to emerge from their cocoons and fly away prior to boiling.

However, domesticated silkworms used to make silk have undergone thousands of years of selective breeding and are not "manufactured" to emerge from their cocoons.