It's that time of year again! I was out for a Saturday run this sunny morning from North Sydney to Sydney Mines and found the roads and sidewalks covered with woolly bears. So exciting.

For those not familiar with them, woolly bears are caterpillars, the larval form of Pyrrharctia Isabella, the Isabella Tiger Moth. These caterpillars can be easily identified by their black and brown banned (but sometimes just black) appearance.

A few things people might wonder about - what the moth looks like and where they are all going. But before the practical and interesting stuff I'm going to entertain you with useless knowledge. Those that have shared a drink with me (the few that have) know that I have a habit of trying to find logic in nonsense, no matter how far of a stretch it is and no matter how disinterested my audience is or becomes with the topic. 

To me woolly bears are the closest insect I can imagine to a mammal. I have an affinity for certain mammals (capybara, tapirs, dugong, cats, and dogs). Woolly bear bristles feel like hair, and they are the same colour as many dogs and cats. People pet them, they curl up into a ball like a hedgehog, and they are completely harmless. Perhaps they are too small for you to be able to see the fear in their eyes or hear their screams as we giant creatures loom over them to give them a pet. Or maybe they just like it. Who knows. 

Recently I opted to add facial hair to my physical appearance in some desperate attempt to reinvent myself once again, and I've grown akin with these creatures, wanting to be part of the migration as though I was raised with these larvae by Isabella Tiger Moths (who don't rear their young, but going with the mammal theme here). Feral children raised by animals is a thing that goes beyond the Tarzan story, but perhaps I'm wandering a bit off topic. If you are interested:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/julia-fullerton-batten-feral-children_56098e95e4b0dd85030893a9

One thing that is really neat about these caterpillars is that they freeze solid over the winter. It survives being frozen by producing a cryoprotectant in its tissues. I guess that it's kind of like all those people who have cryogenically frozen themselves in hopes of waking up later. A list of famous people who have been known to have done this can be found here: http://www.answers.com/Q/Who_has_cryogenically_frozen_themselves . The list doesn't include Walt Disney, who never did this and was actually cremated, despite all of those rumours from people that don't know any better. Anyway, the science is completely different and I probably should have resisted bringing this up. They freeze, pupate and become moths. Take my word for it.

Some people say that you can predict the type of winter we will have by the length of the brown band on woolly bears. This comes from a crude study that was done between 1948 and 1956 by a Dr. Curran in the US.  Average brown-segment counts ranged from 5.3 to 5.6 out of the 13-segment total, meaning that the brown band took up more than a third of the woolly bear's boy, which resulted in winters that were milder than average. This, of course is folklore, kind of like flu vaccinations resulting in autism, just less harmless folklore. Sure there was a study back then but the sample size was small and it was in one isolated area in the Carolinas. Don't get wrapped up in things that aren't confirmed by good science!

OK, so I'll fill you in on why they are all travelling all over the place in the city. This time of year they are searching for overwintering sites under bark or inside cavities of rocks or logs. This usually means getting out of your back yard. I got lazy and looked it up, but I was tempted to follow one to see where they are going (I know, don't I have better things to do on a Saturday morning? The answer is "no" sadly). I got this idea from a dear friend that is dealing carpenter ants. The internet told her that you have to find one in the dark (when they are most active) and follow it to it's colony to get to the root of the problem. So, in comparison, following a woolly bear during the day is rather sane and more socially accepted, right?

And what about the moth that this glorious caterpillar turns into? Here it is. A rather drab thing, but I like moths. 

I hope you took away something meaningful from all this, even if it was only that Walt Disney didn't freeze himself and won't be showing up again one day.

Chris Bellemore is a blogger from Ontario that moved to Cape Breton Island and is logging his experiences in this strange and wonderful place. The good, the bad and the ugly."You see, in this world there's two kinds of people, my friend: Those with loaded guns and those who dig. You dig. "

My life in a nutshell, with most of the bad parts cut out:
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My music that I work on by myself because I can't find a band is here:
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