WHAT'S WEATHER AHEAD? WOOLY BEARS PROVIDE CLUE

FRUITLAND -- If the wooly bears collected this week by the 26 students in Martha Short's fifth-grade class at North Elementary School are any indication, the coming winter will begin and end on the cold side, but will be mild in between.

The students report most of the wooly bears, or wooly worms as they're called in some parts of the country, had broad, brown or orange bands of hair in the middle, and smaller black bands of hair at each end.

If the wooly bears had all-black hair, the winters were harsh and cold.

If they had black bands around each end and brown in the middle, the early colonists noticed the winters were usually cold at first, mild in the middle and cold again toward the end.

The students' interest in wooly bears and their purported ability to predict the severity of the coming winter was prompted by a story that appeared recently in the St. Louis newspaper.

The students decided to collect some wooly bears and find out for themselves what the coming winter may be like.

Charlene Masengil, 10, said there was no problem finding the wooly bears just outside their classroom door. Altogether, they collected over 30 of the critters.

Chad Schuessler, 10, said there was no place to put them the wooly bears so he stuffed them in his jacket pocket.

After returning to the school, they put their wooly bears in a small can with lots of grass for them to feed on. A plastic top with holes punched in it kept the wooly bears from escaping.

Most of the students had seen wooly bears before, but none was aware of their reputation to predict the weather. The students learned that the wooly bear actually is a caterpillar in the same family as tiger moths, in particular the Pyrrharctia Isabella moth. They found out the moth is found throughout the U.S., and that during the early summer the adult moth lays eggs that hatch into little wooly worms. The little ones eat grass and grow during the summer.

In the fall, after they mature, the caterpillars start looking for a place to hibernate during the winter months. They crawl into old logs, wooden siding on houses or bark on trees, where they spin themselves into cocoons. It is during the months of September and early October, before the first killing freeze, that the wooly bears are most visible, as they scurry across highways, sidewalks or playgrounds.

Wooly bears sleep through the winter and emerge in the spring as moths to begin the cycle all over again.

While many may scoff at the wooly bear's ability to foretell what the winter will be like, there are just as many who put stock in what its colored bands have to say each fall.

For those who remain skeptical, consider this: in October 1991, the wooly bears predicted a mild winter. After a cool start, the winter wound up as one of the warmest in nearly 50 years in Cape Girardeau. Last fall, the majority of the wooly bears had large brown or orange bands, and it also was a relatively mild one, with a very cool and wet spring.

After examining the wooly bears in their classroom this week, the students released them in the same area where they were found so they could find a warm, dry location for their long winter's sleep.

The students now know a little bit more about the early history and folklore of our country and its people because of their curiosity about the tiny wooly bear.