Refers to non- farmed silk (see sericulture) produced from the cocoons of silk moths that live in the wild, whose caterpillars are generally fed on the leaves of oak and deciduous trees other than mulberry. Wild silk is harvested once the caterpillars have left, so that wild silk is often called Ahimsa–peace silk, or Vanya and includes tussah, muga, eri, antung.
Being broken, these shorter threads are spun into yarn rather than reeled, which makes them much less fine than the long filaments obtained through sericulture.
Spun silk is always wild silk.
Wild silks tend to produce textiles with an irregular, striated texture, which is worth paying attention to when cutting a pattern.