Caterpillar Crawl

Fall must be here, not because of the calendar or the Halloween decorations on the store shelves, but because of the woolly bear caterpillars.  I don't like to hit anything that crosses the road ever, but it's almost impossible to avoid hitting the woolly bear caterpillars as they make the slow, crawling journey across roadways at this time of year.  They're so beautiful, with their reddish-brown and black horizontal striped bristles. I've always heard that old wives' tale that the size of the caterpillar's bands of color can forecast the upcoming winter weather, so I looked it up online the other night. I learned that a scientist studied the caterpillars back in the 1940s to determine if the width of the reddish-brown band could forecast weather for the winter ahead.  Although the evidence was inconclusive and even disregarded by other scientific professionals, a contemporary scientist suggested that the width of the band could indeed tell us something about the severity of winter.  However, it would shed light on the previous winter/early spring when the caterpillar was born, not the forthcoming one.  Whether woolly bear caterpillars can prognosticate weather or not, I enjoy seeing them at this time of year and I'll continue to do my best to not run them over.