What is Silk made of?

Answer 1

I don't know the chemical components of silk per se, only how it is made. When I was a very young girl, my teacher had about a dozen silkworms (where she got them, who knows) and asked if any of us knew where a Mullberry tree was. I said my home had 2 nice ones and they were of the Fruitless Mullberry tree type (my father was very particular of what he landscaped with and told me what every plant, tree, grass was). She let me bring them home and I kept them in a clean, brown shoebox and poked small holes on the lid for air. The silkworms were about 1/2 inch long, white. Every day I would carefully slide fresh green leaves from the Mullberry tree under the little guys and they would come to life, crawl to the edges and slowly but efficiently chew and chew and chew up the leaves. Next day, I'd removed the remains of the gnawed up leaves, put in new leaves. After about 5 days, there would be beautiful white, glistening little cocoons in the shoebox and when I'd put in the leaves, the tiny silkworms would crawl out of their perfect little cocoons to begin eating and I'd carefully remove the silk cocoons and put them in a sealed container for my teacher. Had those little silkworms for about 5 months. It was fascinating.

Answer 2

it is made by silk worms ad is very expensive
like a spider makes a web or a caterpillar makes a cocoon silk worms spin silk and people harvest it

Answer 3

Protein. One produced by the silkworm for the production of it's cocoon. An interesting aside; the study of the switching on and off of the gene coding for this protein gave early insights into gene control.

Answer 4

silk is made of threads of a silkworm.Cool

Answer 5

Protein

Answer 6

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk