By Stephen Smoot
Delores Vedder of Moorefield keeps a close eye on the woolly worms as they venture forth each fall as part of their life cycle. She observed different aspects of the small creature as it ambled up the sidewalk.
“He was crawling on the walk,” Vedder stated. She described him as “black on one end,” then said “he was brown. Not a dark brown, but sort of like a reddish brown in the middle.” She said that it was black at the tail and also “just regular. Not real fat. Not real thin.”
A North Carolina State University publication several years ago explored the use of woolly worms as prediction devices. They wished to determine if the traditional Appalachian lore regarding them held up to academic inquiry.
Traditionally, black stripes are said to predict more cold and snow. Brown stripes indicate milder conditions. The Old Farmers’ Almanac suggests that “if their rusty band is wide, it will be a mild winter.”
When the woolly worm sports narrow bands, that indicates a harsh winter. Also, as the Farmers’ Almanac states, “the more black there is, the more severe the winter,” according to tradition. Its usual 13 bands of color are said to represent the 13 weeks of traditional winter, according to Appalachian History .net
In 1948, Dr. C. H. Curran of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City decided to test the tradition of woolly worms and weather. The long-term study also gave him a professional excuse to go on many excursions deep into the New York State countryside during leaf changing season.
He and the friends and colleagues who accompanied him styled themselves the “Original Society of the Friends of the Woolly Bear.”
Whether one calls it the woolly worm or bear, this species has one characteristic that sets it apart. It is one of the few North American animals to practice “freeze tolerance.” It pumps itself full of cryoinjectants when the cold season approaches. This enables it to not just hibernate, but to freeze itself in its larval stage throughout the winter. It then thaws in the spring to form a pupa and transform further.
After eight years of study, Dr. Curran established that he needed a much larger sample size over a longer term to truly establish a connection. He did say that his work did not rule out the possibility that the tradition was, in fact true.
Lack of resolution only makes this unusual little insect that much more interesting to scientists and natural observers alike.
