Abstract
Nagaland, a small mountainous state of north eastern India lying between 25°26’- 27°40’ N latitudes and 93°20’- 95°15’ E longitudes, harbours 15 wild silk moth species out of which cocoon and yarn diversity of ten species viz. Antheraea assamensis (cultivated and wild variety), Antheraea proylei, Samia ricini, Antheraea roylei, Antheraea sps (novo), Actias selene, Cricula trifenestrata, Samia canningi, Theophila religiose and Attacus atlas are studied. While the first three species are commercially reared in Nagaland, the other species are available in wild form with lesser abundance and not yet explored for production of cocoon and usable silk. The paper highlights on the important economic parameters of wild collected and reared cocoons which were degummed and reeled/spun on reeling machine or spinning wheel for yarn analysis. C. trifenestrata is the smallest and A. atlas is the biggest in terms of size and weight among all the cocoons which exhibit wide variation in colour. Except for A. roylei, which produces doubled layered cocoon, all other silkworms produce a single layer and C. trifenestrata is conspicuous in having perforated cocoon. Shell ratio is minimum in A. selene and maximum in S. ricini. With the variation of results, all the wild species are found to produce silk that can be reeled/spun in to fine or coarse yarn, comparable to silk produced by other commercially exploited species in terms of colour, size and texture. The length of a single cocoon filament is maximum in A. proylei (405.2±16.4 m) and minimum in T. religiose (112±4.41 m). Denier
ranges from 2.9 (T. religiose) to 7.8 (A. selene) however, maximum and minimum amount of raw silk/yarn yield is recovered from Samia ricini (72.86%) and Cricula trifenestrata (27.1%) respectively. While silk yarn of S. canningi differs from S. ricini in coarseness and colour only, the spun silk produced by C. trifenestrata and A. atlas can be blended with other silk for its distinct colour and appearance.
