How many types of silk moth. Saturniidae commonly known as saturniids is a family of lepidoptera with an estimated 2300 described species. And a few other related species or races inhabiting the indo australian bio geographic region china and sudan. Moths are a paraphyletic group of insects that includes all members of the order lepidoptera that are not butterflies with moths making up the vast majority of the orderthere are thought to be approximately 160000 species of moth many of which have yet to be described. Adults are characterized by large lobed wings heavy bodies covered in hair like scales and reduced mouthparts.
Silkworm moth bombyx mori lepidopteran whose caterpillar has been used in silk production sericulture for thousands of years. Most species of moth are nocturnal but there are also crepuscular and diurnal species. There are more than twenty different species of the moth that are found all the way from the philippines to india as well as eastern indonesia. They spin light brown cocoons nearly 6 cm long with peduncles of varying lengths 2 10 cm.
They are found in great many colors including bronze chocolate brown brownish grey chromium yellow and khaki. Although native to china the silkworm has been introduced throughout the world and has undergone complete domestication with the species no longer being found in the. Fagara silk is obtained from the giant silk moth attacus atlas l. The family contains some of the largest species of moths in the world.