crossing the gravel

crossing the gravel

a banded woolly bear meets

a sprouting acorn

          I've been seeing more woolly bear caterpillars with unusual banding this year. Usually the Isabella tiger moth larva have about equal bands of obsidian black on both ends and a copper mid-section. The one above is mostly orange with a black head and just a small patch of black on the hind end, whereas the one below has a long black head and distinct black rear end.

          This is the time of year when these intrepid caterpillars migrate in search of a place to curl up and freeze solid over the winter, surviving by producing a cryoprotectant in their tissues. While cleaning up the yard, I often find them rolled into a fuzzy orange ball under a piece of wood. In the spring they will thaw out, feed for a few months and then pupate into a lovely golden moth with black spots and a fuzzy thorax. The moth has only a few days to mate. What a strange life.

          Even stranger is the case of banded woolly bears who live in the Arctic. There is so little time to feed that the larva have to overwinter many times before pupating, sometimes as long as 14 winters. Imagine, 14 resurrections and then only a few days with wings to find your soul mate.

          I am doing my usual zigzag driving on the highway to avoid the "bears" as they cross in both directions. When I go for a walk along our gravel road, I carefully pick up any I see, their heads covered in limestone dust, and move them to a safe spot in the foliage, in the direction they were headed. I watched one for many minutes as it climbed with great determination through the thatch of grass. It climbed the stem of some plant, got to the top and then took some time, waving its head about, before it climbed back down. What a tiring journey it must be, even with all those legs.

          Today I noticed several small black caterpillars, each clinging to the end of a dry grass stem. When I prodded one, it didn't move. One of them had raised its head and died there, frozen in that position. Strange way to die.

          When I stepped back from examining this curious caterpillar corpse, I looked down and saw a banded woolly bear, curled up. They do this when disturbed. I bent over to pick it up and move it to safety, but then I saw a bit of bright green stuff protruding from its underside. I realized to my horror that I must have stepped on the poor thing. All this time, trying to save them from vehicles and here I killed one with my foot! 

          It may seem strange that I would be upset over killing an insect, but so it is with me. If something comes into my attention, it becomes dear to me, no matter how small. To cause its death, whether unwittingly or accidentally, makes me very sad. 

          Unfathomable are the ways of life and death on Earth.

woolly bear -- black hair

woolly bear -- black hair

curled in a ball under a log

waiting for winter

Isabella usually goes with the black and orange look for Halloween, but this year she dyed her spiky hair all black. I found her curled up under a log, taking a nap.
          Isabella is a woolly bear caterpillar, and she's not the only one to change her costume. Every single one of the woolly bears I've seen crossing the highway in search of a hidey-hole for the winter have all-black bristles. In all my years of watching woolly bears, I've never seen anything like it. What does it mean? 
          The woolly bear, which is neither a bear nor woolly, is the bristly larva of the Isabella tiger moth. The caterpillar has 13 segments, normally orange-brown in the middle and black on both ends. According to legend, the wider the brown band, the milder the coming winter, so no brown at all would predict a really hard winter. But is it true?
          According to Mike Peters, an entomologist at the University of Massachusetts, the number of brown hairs indicates the age of the caterpillar, reflecting how late it emerged in the spring. A heavy winter or an early spring the previous year would result in a wider brown band. If that's true, then we should have had a harsh winter last year, but actually it was fairly warm with little snow, unlike most winters in Iowa. 
          So who knows, maybe the woolly bears just wanted a new look this year.