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Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear, wasn’t he? Ok, so even if Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn’t fuzzy, he was still a bear, right? So what about a Woolly Bear? And if a Woolly Bear isn’t woolly, is he still a bear? Well, not exactly because a Woolly Bear isn’t a bear at all!

A Woolly Bear is a caterpillar! This cute little guy is covered with bands of short, stiff bristles of hair that make it look “woolly”. The black and reddish-brown bands of hair are the same color as bear fur.

There are 13 bands of “fur”. The bands at both ends of the caterpillar are black and the ones in the middle are reddish-brown or orange so that the Woolly Bear looks striped.

Folklore has it that the Woolly Bear can foretell winter weather. According to the legend, the wider the middle brown section, the milder the coming winter will be. A narrow center band predicts a harsh winter.

Even though you can find the Woolly Bear all over the United States, it seems only right that experiments to test the caterpillar’s forecasting accuracy were held at Bear Mountain State Park in New York.

From 1948 to 1956 several Woolly Bears were observed and their brown center segments were counted and recorded. It was found that the middle brown section was made up of about 5 to 6 bands, or more than a third of the Woolly Bear’s body. And the winters during those 8 years, were in fact, milder than normal. Because a true scientific experiment has to be repeated over and over again to make sure that the findings are correct and because it is just plain fun to watch Woolly Bears, the nature museum at Bear Mountain State Park started the research project again in 1986. They have been finding that the Woolly Bear’s predictions are accurate about 80% of the time!

What does the Woolly Bear do when it’s not predicting winter weather? Like most other caterpillars, Woolly Bears eat and eat and eat some more. They eat dandelions, clover, birch and maple tree leaves, and a grocery list of weeds and other greenery. They really don’t stop eating until they feel the onset of cold weather. Then they get busy looking for cozy nooks under tree bark or for little holes in rocks and logs to snuggle in for the winter.

When spring arrives, Woolly Bears spin fuzzy cocoons. Inside the cocoon the Woolly Bear caterpillar undergoes a magical change. When it emerges from the cocoon it no longer is a caterpillar. Gone are the woolly bristles and stubby body. A slimmed down body appears with yellow-orange and cream colored wings that unfold to show off their pretty black spots. This new creature also has a new name. The Woolly Bear has completed its transformation and has become the Isabella Tiger Moth.