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🚨 ARTHROPOD OF THE DAY 🚨

The banded woollybear, Pyrrharctia isabella, is famous for predicting the harshness of the coming winter weather (the wider the black bands, the harsher the winter). It is informally known as the woolly bear, woolly worm, weatherworm, black-ended Bear, and fuzzy wuzzy. The banded woollyworm is also the main feature of a Woollybear Festival each fall in Vermilion, Ohio and a Woolly Worm Festival in Banner Elk, North Carolina.

Mature caterpillars are a little over an inch long and are covered with stiff hairs. Middle segments of the abdomen are covered with rusty red hairs and with black hairs at either end. As the caterpillars grow, black hairs are replaced with orange hairs so that the rusty red band is widest in mature banded woollybears. In fall, these caterpillars seek overwintering shelter under bark, leaf litter or a log, and can survive temperatures as low as -90 F. They overwinter either as caterpillars or they spin flimsy cocoons inside of which they overwinter as pupae.

Male Isabella moths are buff with small black spots. Female Isabella moths have lovely pink hind wings.

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