If you find one of these fuzzy “woolly bears”, don’t depend on it to predict if South Carolina will have snow this year or not but it’s fun to believe they do. Woolly Worm Festivals are celebrated in the fall all around the United States. Also, if it had a wide brown band, then the previous winter weather was mild. The earlier the caterpillar develops, then the more brown coloration it will have. There is some evidence that the woolly bear’s coloration is actually determined either by the maturity of the caterpillar or may have been determined by the previous winter’s weather. Curran’s research was confined to such a small area and for a short period of time, it was not conclusive scientific proof that the caterpillar’s coloration would predict how severe the winter weather would be. His findings were published in the New York Herald newspaper. He determined that if there were more brown segments versus black ones, then the winter would be mild. Curran collected samples and measured the length of the brown bands.

He limited his studies to an area in the Bear Mountain State Park in New York. Curran, who was the curator of insects at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, decided to do research on woolly caterpillars.

On the other hand, the more brown segments there are, then the winter will be milder.ĭo you ever wonder how folklore such as this gets started? In 1948, Dr. The 13 segments represent the number of weeks in the winter therefore, the more segments that are black will represent the number of cold winter weeks. The blacker the caterpillar supposedly means that the winter will be colder, and the more segments that are black will determine how many weeks of cold weather the winter will have. Legend has it that the amount of black on the woolly caterpillar will predict how cold the upcoming winter will be. This is why you see so many of them in the fall of the year.

When mature, they search for overwintering havens, such as under bark, rocks, or logs. The more brown it has on its body, the milder the winter.Īlso commonly known as “woolly bears”, the caterpillars emerge from eggs during the warm summer months. Legend has it that woolly caterpillar’s ( Pyrrharctia isabella) coloration will predict the weather for the upcoming winter.

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