![]() ![]() So, the coloring and size of the woolly worm tell us about the past, not the future.Ĭaterpillars shed their skins several times before reaching adult size, and their colors change with their age, too. The width of the banding is an indicator of the current or past season’s growth. The better the preceding growing season, the bigger the woolly worm will grow. In North America, there are over 200 species. The caterpillar’s coloring is thought to be based on its age, how long it’s been feeding and its species. The caterpillar can’t predict what Old Man Winter has in store for the upcoming winter season. The Center for Woolly Worm Studies at Appalachian State University in Boone conducts annual studies on about 500 woolly bear caterpillars in a more scientific attempt to predict the winter weather.As much fun as it is to search for the woolly worm each fall, don’t put your bets on it. Caterpillars race on three-foot strings in heats until a champion is found, and the winning woolly worm is used for the upcoming winter's prediction. Banner Elk hosts an annual Woolly Worm Festival at which the main events are the woolly worm races. "Reading the worms" is a popular fall pastime in the North Carolina Mountains. Another version holds more generally that a predomination of dark bands means a hard winter, and a majority of brown bands predicts a mild season. For instance, the 13 bands on the caterpillar's body, colored brown and black, are said to correspond to the 13 weeks of winter, and the darker a band, the harsher that week will be. ![]() The belief that the coloration of the woolly worm's coat matches the harsh and mild periods of the winter has several variations. North Carolina's Mountain peoples have long relied on the woolly worm's markings to predict the severity of the upcoming winter. Woolly worms appear in early fall, when they feast on common plants, and emerge in spring from the pupa stage as moths. The fuzzy brown and black creature commonly called the woolly worm or woolly bear is the larval form of the tiger moth ( Isia isabella). ![]()
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