Figure 1

Distribution of silk moths by their indigenous habitats (a) and their cocoons (b–h). (a) Areas marked in colors correspond to habitats of silk moths: green—A. pernyi (b) is indigenous to southern China but was introduced to sub-tropical and tropical Asia for wild silk production; purple—S. ricini (c) is indigenous to Korea and eastern China, though it naturally spread to parts of India and was introduced to Thailand in the 1970s for commercial silk production; yellow—A. yamamai (d) is endemic to east Asia but was also introduced unsuccessfully to southeastern Europe for cultivation (not included here); orange—A. mylitta (e) is endemic to the northeastern region of India; red—A. assamensis (f) is indigenous to the Assam region of India and naturally immigrated to southern China; blue—B. mori (g) was domesticated from its wild precursor B. mandarina (h) in southern China and is now widespread from Asia to Europe. This figure was created by the first author using photographs of samples and opensource images edited with Adobe Photoshop CS6.