The woolly bear favorite food is dandelion, with plantain and clover close behind as your caterpillar's top picks. These common yard weeds make up the core of what your woolly bears prefer to eat. You can find all three growing in most lawns across your area. If you've got dandelions in your yard, you've got a woolly bear buffet ready for your fuzzy visitor.
I tested this by placing a woolly bear on a paper towel with different leaves around it. I set out dandelion, plantain, maple, and grass bits for it to choose from. The caterpillar crawled straight to the dandelion leaf and started eating within a minute. It moved to your plantain next after finishing up. The maple leaf and grass sat there untouched for the whole afternoon that I watched.
The full woolly bear caterpillar diet goes well beyond just those top three plants for you to know about. NC State Extension lists plantain, dandelion, dock, aster, goldenrod, and some grasses as your confirmed host plants. Minnesota DNR adds that your adult moths sip nectar from flowers. In the caterpillar stage, your woolly bear eats leaves to build up fat reserves for its long winter sleep. You'll notice your caterpillar eating a lot in the weeks before it goes dormant.
Knowing what plants woolly bears eat tells you a lot about why they do so well near your home. They eat a wide range of common weeds instead of depending on one plant from your garden. This means your woolly bears can find food almost anywhere they hatch across your continent. They thrive from southern Canada down to northern Mexico because their dinner grows in every yard and field you can point to on a map.
Think about a monarch caterpillar that can only eat milkweed from your garden for its food. If milkweed vanishes from your area, your monarchs vanish too. Your woolly bears face no such problem at all. Dandelions and plantain grow in every state and every province you can name on your map. A woolly bear born in your Maine yard eats the same weeds as one born in your friend's Texas yard. That broad menu is one big reason you still see so many of them each fall near your home and along your walking paths.
If you're keeping a woolly bear at home, feeding yours is simple work for you. Pick fresh dandelion or plantain leaves from a spot in your yard that you haven't sprayed. Place two or three leaves in your container each day for your caterpillar. Mist the leaves with a light spray of water since your woolly bear gets most of its moisture from the food it eats. Swap out any wilted or dried leaves every one to two days so yours always has fresh options to choose from.
You should stop feeding once your caterpillar enters its winter dormancy in late fall. It will stop eating on its own, curl up in your container, and stay still for months ahead. Don't worry about your little friend during this time at all. The fat it stored from all those dandelion leaves in your care will carry it through to spring. Then it wakes up, spins a cocoon in your container, and becomes a moth for you to release outside.
Read the full article: Woolly Bear Caterpillar Facts and Guide
