Predicting the future

Just when all the butterflies have been displaced by fluttering leaves, the ground has become covered by another harbinger of colder weather.  I have to be careful not to step on the numerous woolly bear caterpillars scrunching their way from here to there as they look for a safe spot to cocoon until spring, when they will turn into tiger moths.  I am reminded of the fable I heard as a child that more black on the woolly means more winter, more brown indicates that the winter will be mild.  I decided to check into this theory, seeing that most of the caterpillars I'm avoiding are decidedly on the dark side.  It's a fun story!  


In 1948, the curator of insects at the American Museum of Natural History in NYC, Dr. C. H. Curran, came up with the theory that the color configuration on these caterpillars had significance.  He did an 8 year study measuring the length of the brown middle vs. the intensity of the winter.  He determined there was a correlation, and formed The Original Society of the Friends of the Woolly Bear.  The idea caught folks' imagination in many places, and an entire generation grew up believing this woolly folklore.  There is even a Woolly Worm Festival each October in Banner Elk, North Carolina!

Tiger Moth

According to entomologist Mike Peters from the University of Massachusetts, "There's evidence that the number of brown hairs has to do with the age of the caterpillar --- in other words, how late it got going in the spring. The [band] does say something about a heavy winter or an early spring.  The only thing is . . . it's telling you about the previous year."  You can read the details about the woolly caterpillar at www.almanac.com.   


I'm glad I finally got to the bottom of one of those old wives' tales I have wondered about since I was a kid.  Now as I appear possessed running in a zig-zag pattern trying to dodge squishing them on my new running shoes, I will laugh to myself about how Dr. C. H. Curran convinced us all that these prickly little beasts could predict the future.


Até amanhã... 

9/14/11 - 3.2 miles | 44 min | 5.3 mph | 230 kcal