Re: What are some animals that can help predict the weather forcast?

The short answer is that we don't know if any animals can predict weather. There are lots of animal behaviours that seem to predict weather: dolphins come into sheltered bays to avoid storms, spiders leave their webs when it rains, and so on. Then again, it may be that they do this all the time and people only take note or remember this when a storm comes. What we need is for someone to do a scientific study to see if animals really can predict weather.

There was one fairly scientific study that looked at the wooly bear caterpillar. The wooly bear has a brown band on it. The thickness of this band was supposed to indicate how severe the coming winter would be. Unfortunately, the study found no relationship between the size of the band and winter temperatures. Seeing whether Punxsutawney Phil, a groundhog in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, sees his shadow on February 2nd (Groundhog's Day) also doesn't work, sadly.

Listening to the speed of cricket chirps will roughly tell you the temperature, but that's not predicting. It's just telling you the temperature.

Animal behaviours that do seem to predict rain or storms include: seagulls coming inland, bees staying in their hives, ant hiding in their colonies and sealing up their entrances, pigs gathering straw, cows gather together, porpoises finding sheltered bays, and so on. Many people claim to have pain in their joints or stuffed noses before it rains. The severity of the upcoming winter has been said to be predicted by the width of the footprints of snowshoe hares in fall, how close to their den's opening bears sleep, and more.

It may be that some animals do predict the weather, but until we do proper studies we can't really be sure. How well human weather forecasters can predict weather is often also up for debate :-)

A few web sites that you can find more information at are:
Janice VanCleave's Fun Facts
The Polynesian Wayfaring Society (look near the bottom)
The Alaskan Science Forum