Image: Vinayaraj, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
‘What is that?’ you would ask in astonishment as a thing that is clearly of magic flutters by. Its sheer size would be a spectacle of its own. Most likely, no one around you would know; and you would have to dig through Google to discover the name of this incredible creature. If you’re blessed with company that would recognise such an unusual insect, they would tell you that it is the tussar moth— the creature that makes the beautiful tussar silk fibres that lead to one of the most treasured textiles here at Rithihi.
There’s something otherworldly about the tussar silk moth. Their beauty is almost mystical. The softly fuzzy wings almost four inches in span, with the golden sheen so characteristic to tussar silks, carry lovely maroon and dark grey markings. And those eyes! The strikingly large, vaguely reflective circles like misty pools of water, are false ‘eyes’. They scare predators away, creating the illusion of a much larger creature with enormous eyes. These fascinating creatures do not consume any food after breaking out of their cocoon as adult moths, and survive entirely on the nutritional reserves gathered at the early stages of their life as caterpillars.
Tussar moths, or Antheraea mylitta, are never reared in farms, and only grow in the wild. Their cocoons are collected by wanderers of the forests after the moths have broken out, earning tussar silks their much-loved reputation as cruelty free luxuries. Although not killed to extract silk, the number of tussar moths are declining in the wild due to excessive deforestation. It makes us think of all the incredible beauty that the Earth loses from the acts of us humans.
