Samia cynthia ricini Giant Moth Insect Tropical Night Butterfly Saturnid Saturniidae

Samia cynthia ricini one wing lenght cm 7-8 Giant Moth Insect Tropical Night Butterfly Saturnid Saturniidae, the largest moth in the world.
Family: Saturniidae.
Common name: The Ailanthus Silkmoth.
Syn. Phalaena attacus, Saturnia aylanti, Attacus walkeri, Bombyx ailanthi, Philosamia cynthia, Saturnia ailanti, Attacus cynthia.

Samia cynthia (Drury, 1773) is a Moth belonging to the Saturniidae family, native to the Far East (Asian regions of Russia, China, Japan), but also introduced in Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and North America.
The adult has a wingspan that can reach up to 16.5 cm.
The larvae are bred to produce silk that is stronger than that of the mulberry silk. Imported into the western regions of the planet for the production of silk, the species has also naturalized on the North American east coast, in France, Italy, Switzerland, Hungary, Austria, Croatia and Uruguay.
In Italy it was introduced in 1854 using Ailanthus altissima as a host plant. The eggs are laid on the leaves and the larvae feed primarily on the leaves of this plant, but the species is also secondarily associated with other botanical species belonging to various genera (Ricinus, Sambucus, Ligustrum, Pyrus, etc.). From an agricultural point of view, the species does not represent any risk due to the limited extent of the damage caused by the defoliating caterpillars.
The cessation of the production of this silk in Italy (especially in the subalpine region) has left residual presences in nature of the moth, which having escaped from farms continues to reproduce in nature on the now also naturalized ailanthus, given that the latter has been used for the consolidation of railway embankments.