Bombyx mori silkworms for the production of raw silk, has been under way for at least 5,000 years in China, from where it spread to India, Korea, Japan, and the West. The silkworm was domesticated from the wild silkmoth "Bombyx mandarina", which has a range from northern India to northern China, Korea, Japan, and the far eastern regions of Russia. The domesticated silkworm derives from Chinese rather than Japanese or Korean stock. Silkworms were unlikely to have been domestically bred before the Neolithic age. Before then, the tools to manufacture quantities of silk thread had not been developed. The domesticated "B. mori"
Bombyx mandarina true or mulberry silkmoths. The origin of the domesticated silkmoth is enigmatic. It has been suggested that it is the survivor of an extinct species which diverged from the ancestors of "Bombyx mandarina" millions of years ago. However, this is based on an untenable molecular clock hypothesis that assumes that wild and domestic silkmoths evolved equally fast after their lineages diverged. Rather, the effects of artificial selection have accelerated evolution in the domestic form to a point where it is hard to trace the origin of the numerous breeds of domestic silkworms even with the most modern molecular phylogeny methods.