Woolly Bear Caterpillars
Most people in the area have seen or heard of the woolly bear caterpillar also called woolly warm or fuzzy worm. The question that we all ask ourselves is "Can they really predict what the winter is going to be in the upcoming season."
So the story goes that the rust-colored bands that are on the back of the woolly bear, the width of that can actually help you determine how severe the weather will be. So if it's wider, it will be a bad - it will be a good winter. If it's smaller, it's going to be a more severe winter. Sort of like an insect Punxsutawney Phil, except kind of forecasting into the winter instead of looking out back at it and forward. Anyway, so the woolly bear is - a myth that has been around since, you know, the colonial times. But in 1948, this curator of entomology from the American Museum of Natural History, Dr. Howard Curran, he did a little study. He went out to Bear Mountain, New York, and he counted the woolly bears, the bands - the brown bands of the woolly bear there. And he counted different specimens, and he made a prediction. And even today, there are places in the country that celebrate the woolly bear's
prognostication and have festivals.