Caterpillars on the Counter

When we were out on that fall walk two weekends ago, the kids found some caterpillars, the woolly kind, brown-and-black. According to old-timers, you're supposed to be able to predict the severity of the upcoming winter by the width of their stripes. Dad--an official old-timer (sorry, Dad)--said a wide band meant a mild winter, and this 2005 blog from wunderground.com says the same thing.

These caterpillars, which now reside on my kitchen counter in a bug habitat, are entirely brown. Is all that brown representing the widest of all possible bands, predicting the blizzardiest winter in recorded history? Or is it actually band-less, suggesting that we'll have almost no winter weather at all?

In search of an answer, I did a little clicking around and ended up at this 2002 Ohio State Extension Service article. Coming from a scientifically minded institution and all, they poo-poo the caterpillars as weather-predictors. They just laugh about the wide/narrow band predictions.

Entomologist Barbara Bloestcher sounds like a nice lady willing to go along with all this nonsense to a point, but she takes all the fun out of it when she's quoted as saying, "The length of the bands have nothing to do with the severity of winter...Woolly bears hole themselves up somewhere for winter. What do they care what color they are?"

She goes on to offer a psychological explanation, which is really outside her area of expertise, if you ask me. She says, "I think people have this basic need to be prepared, to be forewarned of what the weather has in store for them," said Bloetscher. "That's probably why they make a connection with animal behavior or appearance. It gives them some sort of control over the future."

Yeah, well...

I know I can't control the future...but I'll admit I would like to be prepared. I'd kind of like to know if the end of my nose will be pinkish-red for the next five-to-six months and whether or not I'll be shuffling around town in my shin-length, sleeping-bag-style down parka all winter. I just need to mentally prepare for that, you know?

So in an attempt to ignore Barbara Bloestcher's bubble-bursting, I think: science, schmience...maybe the old-timers are on to something? Maybe they aren't just grasping for a hint of the future by way of fortune-telling caterpillars and did in fact make some connections over the years between the woolly bears and winter weather?

I glance over at the bug habitat and decide to go with the old-timers. And I'm just going to count on those beautiful brown woolly worms being mild-banded.

No, it isn't science. Bloestcher may be right. It probably is just human nature, and I just need a little hope.