Since silk is made of protein, is it eaten by any species?

According to legend, 5000 years ago a Chinese empress discovered silk when a silkworm cocoon fell into her tea. From Ecoworldly.com, part of the Guardian ... Firstly, there's the "waste not, want not" reasoning behind eating silkworms after they've produced the silk. read more

A 'species' doesn't eat anything. It can't. Members of a species, however, can and do eat, and do all sorts of other interesting things. Now to address the 'meat' of your question. Spiders intentionally eat their own silk webs and lines. read more

The end part was from the Asian spider. For the middle, the researchers used two repeats from the African spider. (That spider’s natural silk protein has about 100 such repeats.) The team coached bacteria to make this hybrid protein. Then they made a solution of the protein in water, concentrated at up to 50 percent. read more