Sometimes I research something that I think I understand and discover that I’ve been completely wrong all my life. This happened with the above caterpillar that I found on my driveway yesterday.
The woolly bear caterpillar is also known as the woolly worm or fuzzy worm. Lore says that it can predict whether winter will be mild or severe.
Let me explain how I was wrong. I call these furry caterpillars “woolly buggers.” According to the internet, I’m the only one who does so. A woolly bugger is a fly used in fishing. However, I’ve been calling them woolly buggers my entire life. I don’t know who taught me, or if I made it up all by myself.
My other error was how I thought it predicted the weather. According to the internet, if the brown stripes are wider, it will be a mild winter. However, if the black stripes are wider, it will be severe. That’s news to me.
I always believed that winter’s intensity was determined by how fuzzy (fat) the caterpillar was. If it were super fuzzy, winter would be cold, and if it were thinner, it would be mild. Of course, I lived in southern California, and all our winters were always mild.
How did I learn this all wrong? Probably because it makes no sense. How would I know if the stripes were different if I didn’t have a previous one to compare. It’s much easier to decide if they are fat or thin.
But, I concede that I have been incorrect. I don’t plan on changing my own woolly bugger measurements, but I will tell other people the agreed-on method.
If you want to learn more about woolly bear caterpillars and why they became weather-predicting animals, check out this website. This is a well-studied creature.
In conclusion, I may not be able to tell from the above woolly bugger whether its red stripes or black stripes are wider, but I can tell that it looks a little fat. Therefore, I think we’re going to have a slightly severe winter (which is normal for the northwest.)