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Punsatony Phil, the protagonist of the annual winter ritual “Groundhog Day,” doesn't do a great job. His predictions were wrong more often than right.
The fortune-telling groundhog didn't see his shadow on Friday, a sign of early spring. Technically, though, winter ends on the vernal equinox, the evening of March 19th.
But according to folklore, the prairie dog is just one of many animals with the uncanny ability to predict the weather, including cows that are said to lie down before the first rains, and caterpillars that are said to be decked out in fewer colors before the cold winter .
Most of these connections have nothing to do with modern science—but there are occasional hints of well-documented fact in the myths.
Phenology is the study of how seasonal events in plant and animal life change according to weather and climate, such as how fish or migratory birds respond to the temperature of water and air. (For the record, this field of study can be practiced as a hard science and is nothing like the pseudoscience of “phrenology.”)
The National Phenology Network tracks when spring ecological signs arrive across the U.S., and blooming season has already begun in some places on the East and West coasts.
Theresa Crimmins, director of the National Phenology Network, said that while Pansatoni Phil is not a reliable predictor of the arrival of spring, phenology does provide scientific support for other seemingly superstitious axioms of the natural world.
“People have been observing (environmental conditions) for thousands of years, basically since humans have been around,” Crimmins said. “So (many of these maxims) are actually valid because, in a sense, they capture the relationship between environmental conditions and plant responses.”
But while folklore often suggests that animal behavior predicts future weather events, in fact, animals and plants respond to weather and climate.
Plants and their predictions
Groundhog Day may have its roots in a tradition brought to the United States from Germany, where the animal that predicted winter was the badger rather than the marmot.
However, many of the most authenticated proverbs about the natural world come from Native Americans.
“One example is growing corn when oak leaves are the size of squirrel ears,” notes a University of Wisconsin-Madison article on phenology. “You know growing corn has nothing to do with oak leaves or squirrels. However, Native Americans observed centuries ago that the soil was warm enough to prevent the seeds from rotting, but if corn was planted at this time, it would be too early to harvest.
Crimmins points out that plants' leaves, berries and flowers have many other predictors of upcoming ecological events.
For example, the black shadow serviceberry is a small tree native to parts of eastern North America, and its name is believed to come from the fact that it blooms at the same time of year that shad begin their river migration. The Lenape and other Native Americans noticed this phenomenon long ago and prepared to fish when the plants began to bloom.
animals and bad weather
Educational Pictures/Global Photo Group/Getty Images
A golden-winged warbler perches on a rock in Mendota Heights, Minnesota.
The Old Farmer's Almanac is a collection of dozens of aphorisms about insects, animals, and their ability to predict weather patterns.
Some claims are questionable. For example, a grass-eating dog's prediction of rainfall may be far less accurate than a meteorologist's weather forecast.
But research suggests that some animals may have an innate sense that helps them detect impending disaster.
For example, golden-winged warblers evacuated an area in Tennessee within 24 hours before a series of devastating tornadoes struck the area, according to a December 2014 study published in the journal Current Biology.
The study authors predict that migratory birds will hear infrasound waves (sounds with frequencies too low for humans to hear) associated with storms and interpret them as warning signals.
Researchers in Germany also studied whether different species of animals can detect impending earthquakes. Scientists found that overall, animals including cattle, sheep and dogs showed more activity in the 20 hours before an earthquake struck, according to a report from Germany's Max Planck Society, an association of nonprofit research institutions.
Insects and frogs
There is some truth to the idea that crickets can serve as nature's thermometers. These insects are ectotherms, meaning their body temperatures change with changes in their surroundings, and they often chirp faster in warm weather.
According to Dobell's law, a formula that describes the relationship between crickets and weather, “you can count the number of chirps every 15 seconds, add 40, and get the temperature in Fahrenheit,” notes the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Frogs also make a unique sound when it's about to rain.
“Many twentieth-century herpetologists have confirmed and clarified the traditional observation that different species of frogs sometimes emit a distinctive sound, the 'rain call,' shortly before wet weather,” said Gordon, professor emeritus of environmental studies Dr. Miller at Seattle University, via email.
Miller said the alerts “could be triggered by rising humidity before precipitation.”
However, other claims about animals' ability to predict seasonal conditions are false.
The woolly bear is a type of caterpillar, also known as a caterpillar, and it is widely believed that the woolly bear can predict the coming harsh winter with its colorful bands. Presumably, the more black an insect has, the worse the conditions on the way.
But in fact, according to the National Weather Service, “the color of a caterpillar depends on the time, age and species of caterpillar feeding.” “The better the growing season, the bigger it will grow. This causes the red-orange band in the middle to become narrower. Therefore, the width of the band is an indicator of current or past season growth, not the severity of the upcoming winter.
climate change and phenology
Crimmins stressed that unusual animal behavior may also be a response to climate change. And often not in a good way.
Crimmins pointed out that the climate crisis and human development are causing various ecological problems. For example, as the weather warms, bears enter hibernation later and wake up earlier. This could lead to more interactions between people and bears as they search for food, and there are concerns about how a shorter hibernation period could affect bear pregnancies.
Miller added that while frogs may be able to predict upcoming rainfall, “many amphibian species continue to decline due to various environmental and climatic factors, as Rachel Carson noted in 1962 of Birds As pointed out at the time, perhaps the loudest sound they make to us today is their growing chorus and growing silence.
