{"id":24440,"date":"2024-12-28T17:48:48","date_gmt":"2024-12-29T01:48:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/?p=24440"},"modified":"2024-12-28T17:48:48","modified_gmt":"2024-12-29T01:48:48","slug":"2024-december-28","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/?p=24440","title":{"rendered":"2024 December 28"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>2024 December 28<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>Marie O\u2019Shaughnessy writes: I was at Maber Flats with Carla on Christmas Eve December 24th and during our walk we found a\u00a0Banded Woolly\u00a0Bear caterpillar crawling along the dirt pathway. I thought it was so surprising to see the larva of the Isabella Tiger Moth in December. Is this sighting unusual?<\/p>\n<p>When I researched this\u00a0caterpillar I was fascinated to find it is featured in the old Farmer\u2019s Folk Lore Almanac.<\/p>\n<p>It is <em>reputed<\/em> (!) to be able to forecast the winter\u00a0weather, based on the width of the orange\/rust coloured middle band. The more of this colour the milder the winter weather, and the more black each end of the\u00a0caterpillar , the harsher the weather.\u00a0\u00a0 So it is said, anyway!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Jeremy Tatum writes:\u00a0 The <strong>Banded Woolly Bear <\/strong>(which, as Marie, says, is the caterpillar of the Isabella Tiger Moth) spends the winter as a caterpillar.\u00a0 We generally see lots of them in October, and then we see them again in March or April as they come out of winter hibernation.\u00a0 Mild mid-winter may cause them to wake up and wander around.\u00a0 Whether this is good for them is questionable \u2013 it may be better for them to sleep undisturbed throughout the winter.<\/p>\n<p>And yes, the width of the central brown band is indeed reputed to forecast the severity of the winter.\u00a0 This is, of course, total nonsense \u2013 the width of the band has nothing whatever to do with forecasting winter.\u00a0 But it persists as part of folklore, and it is remarkable that there are still people who believe it to be true.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-24439 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/IMG_9665.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"476\" height=\"226\" \/><\/strong>Banded Woolly Bear <em>Pyrrharctia isabella <\/em>(Lep.: Erebidae \u2013 Arctiinae)<br \/>\nMarie O\u2019Shaughnessy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>2024 December 28 \u00a0\u00a0 Marie O\u2019Shaughnessy writes: I was at Maber Flats with Carla on Christmas Eve December 24th and during our walk we found a\u00a0Banded Woolly\u00a0Bear caterpillar crawling along the dirt pathway. I thought it was so surprising to see the larva of the Isabella Tiger Moth in December. Is this sighting unusual? When [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-invertebrate-alert"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24440"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24442,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24440\/revisions\/24442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicnhs.bc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}