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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Article
Extraction of Natural Silk Fibre from Cocoons of Argema mimosae (Lepidoptera: Saturniidae)
Author(s)
Boniface Mutua Ngoka1, Everlyn Kamene Nguku1, Esther Ndaisi Kioko3, Suresh Kumar Raina1 and Jones Mulwa Mueke2
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DOI:10.17265/2161-6256/2015.10.008
Affiliation(s)
1. ICIPE—African Insect Science for Food and Health, P.O. Box 30772-00100, Nairobi, Kenya
2. Department of Biological Sciences, Kenyatta University, P.O. Box 43844, Nairobi, Kenya
3. Zoology Department, National Museums of Kenya, P.O. Box 40658, Nairobi, Kenya
ABSTRACT
In recent years, numerous
actions for sustainable exploitation of forest resources have been undertaken, but
few deal with commercialization of forest insects. Several tree based insect
products, like wild silk, can be linked with
forest conservation activities to provide livelihood services of different
economic scales to forest dependent people. African wild silkmoth, Argema mimosae Boisduval, is one
of the forest insects, a moth in the family of Saturniidae producing wild silk, but there is need
for definite procedures for extracting silk fibre from its cocoons. This study
evaluated physical characteristics of the A.
mimosae cocoons and outlined a procedure to extract viable silk fibre for
use in silk industry. Cocoons of the A.
mimosae were collected from natural forest of Arabuko-Sokoke, Kenya (3°20′ S, 39°55′ E), and others obtained
by semi-captive rearing of the silkmoth larvae. The cocoons of A. mimosae were described to be silvery
in colour, tough and thick with distinctive perforations on the surface and a
prominent valve-like opening with loose filaments at one end. The study
recorded 120 min as the optimum boiling time for the cocoons to yield silvery
brown silk floss using sodium carbonate (Na2CO3) as the
degumming agent. Cocoons boiled in distilled water could not be deflossed into
floss, but remained hard
and intact, as compared with
those of the control, Bombyx mori. This
reveals that A. mimosae cocoons can
be processed for natural silk fibre production and offer communities adjacent
to forests an excellent opportunity to engage in production of natural wild
silk.
KEYWORDS
African wild silkmoth, A. mimosae, cocoons, silk fibre.
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