#woolly bear caterpillars

[heartnosekid]

woolly bear caterpillars with white & orange flowers & nature for @garden-goth!

🧡-🤎-💛 / 🧡-🤎-💛 / 🧡-🤎-💛

[valdevia]

Woolly Bear Caterpillar festivals are held every year across the American Midwest, celebrating these insects and their weather forecasting capabilities. Few people know that these festivals descend from the old Woolly Bear Fairs.

Contestants would raise caterpillars to large sizes by preventing them from pupating. The record size of 8′10 (2.69 m) was measured in the 1932 Fair in Gondal, OH.

[hwinn]

Woolly bear caterpillars

[linseedling]

PSA!!

[squishyfauna]

Freebie sticker for all backers of physical rewards on Kickstarter! 🐛✨

Kickstarter | Patreon | Etsy

@onenicebugperday

[valdynn]

✨☘️Woolly Bear Caterpillar🐛🌱 - Anthropomorphic insects are so cool!!

[notjustbees]

Shoutout to @indentifying-bugs-in-posts for providing the Latin name for this caterpillar, Pyrrharctia isabella. Also known as the woolly bear caterpillar, woolly worm or Isabella tiger moth.

[daybyday-artwork]

How I wanna be

[unbridleddiscoveries]

Isabella tiger moth larva (Woolly bear caterpillar)

[heartnosekid]

far_out_fishing on ig

[yuriio]

you're a pink pony girl, and you dance at the club :)

[moths-daily]

hiiii love this blog have you done the arctic woolly bear moth :^)

Moth Of The Day #276

Artcic Woolly Bear Moth

Gynaephora groenlandica

From the erebidae family. They can be found in Canada, Greenland and Wrangel Island.

Image sources: [1] [2] [3]

[thesingingbullfrog]

It was 65 and sunny here yesterday with snow still on the ground. I found this little Isabella Tiger Moth caterpillar (woolly bear) out and about.

[linseedling]

Evening Commute

[jonnysinsectcatalogue]

Isabella Tiger Moth Caterpillar - Pyrrharctia isabella

While it initially looked like Toronto was set for an early spring in 2025, the string of cold weather over the last few days hasn't been very reassuring. Just when it looks like the sun and its warmth have come out to rejuvenate nature, suddenly we get a snowstorm (on the 2nd) from nowhere, followed by 18°C weather! It's confusing for us, so imagine how nature's other denizens react to such drastic changes. I can only hope that the many Caterpillars like this one are still safe beneath fallen leaves, yard debris and in crevices until Toronto's weather becomes warmer and more consistent. As mentioned in earlier posts, there can be multiple broods of Banded Woolly Bear during a year, and the second brood endures the winter (as a Caterpillar), emerging again during the following spring. Today's individual falls into the brood of the latter half of the year. With autumn slowly unfolding, this Caterpillar was deposited among nearby leaf litter following photography. Although it wasn't all that interested in investigating my fingers, transport was simple as it wriggled onto a fallen leaf. Nevertheless, it will be up to the Caterpillar to decide when it's time to curl up and overwinter.

With enough preparation they'll be able to survive and thusly pupate into their beautiful orange Moth stage by the spring. In order to make it that far, this fuzzy specimen takes special measures to withstand the cold during its quiescence. To clarify, this Caterpillar specie will freeze and stop all metabolic function, but it prepares in such a way that its tissues will remain intact when it thaws. Naturally, the only way to combat freezing and tissue damage is to generate your own antifreeze, and this specie does just that in the form of glycerol and sorbitol. In addition, it helps if the Caterpillar can avoid having excess water in its system before freezing temperatures occur. Thusly, it is fortunate that dehydration stimulates production of further antifreeze to help the Caterpillar survive the cold. If that can be done, the Caterpillar has a great chance of making it through to spring where the warming thaw will revitalize it, and allow it to move again. After thawing however, I wonder how the alcohols used to antifreeze are metabolized by the Caterpillar when it resumes activities.

Pictures were taken on October 28, 2020 with a Google Pixel 4. Just a short post today while I think warm thoughts. For additional information, you can read this paper by Kuharsky and Layne Jr. (2000).

[buttonbuckfarm]

they sure do become a shape when they’re pregnant