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Beast To Beauty
In the animal kingdom the ability to change from an immature form to an adult is called metamorphosis. We all know of the caterpillar changing into a beautiful butterfly or a maggot becoming a common housefly, but there is one insect that indeed makes a "Dr. Jekyl, Mr. Hyde" transformation. It is the common ant-lion.
It gets its name from the larva stage when it is most fierce looking and acting predator of ants and other small insects. At this state it has a short fleshy body with six legs and disproportionately large caliper-like jaws armed with strong spikes and bristles to help grasp its prey. It builds a very spectacular and complex trap in the loose soil. This "pit-trap," constructed by an elaborate series of backward circular motions, ends up becoming cone shaped and about 1/2 inch deep. The ant-lion sits at the bottom of the pit with its jaws exposed waiting for a luckless ant or other insect to slide down the side into its waiting jaws. If an insect tries to climb out before reaching the bottom the larva flips sand and dirt up to knock the victim to the bottom. It is truly a beast when it comes to catching its prey, but that is only half of its life for yet to come is the beauty.
A truly remarkable change occurs with this insect as it changes from the larva to an adult. When the larva has eaten enough food to grow sufficiently, it begins its change into a thing of beauty. By undergoing a complete breakdown of its internal organs, it emerges from the pupa as one of the most graceful of God's creations. The large lace wings of the adult allow it to fly with a most fluid of motions. the arrangement of colors gives this insect a striking beauty that rivals that of any insect in the world. And so, this lowing creature has made the transformation from beast to beauty.
The ability to go through these remarkable changes is one of the gems of God's creation, and plagues evolutionary scientists because they are unexplainable in terms of natural selection. If we exclude the intelligence of a grand designer, it is impossible to explain how the ant-lion or any other insect knows how to undergo metamorphosis.
In the field of Biology, evolutionary scientists are constantly looking for proofs that natural selection has shaped all living things over vast eons of time. They look to the fossil record for evidence that these changes have occurred. There is only one problem, the more they look at the fossil record the less they find supporting their model of origins. This was again shown to be true in the discovery of the best preserved examples of protozoans found in the fossil record to date.
This discovery, made in Schilersee, Germany, of micro-organisms including protozoans in tree resin or amber shows that very little, if any, change has occurred to these organisms during 220 million years of evolution. Quoting from an article about this discovery appearing in Science magazine (January 8, 1993), this ". . . confirms that some of the earth's smallest land dwellers have remained in a state of evolutionary suspended animation since the dawn of the age of the dinosaurs" (emp. mine, DE). These microscopic organisms are so much like those we see today in pond water that the term "morphological stasis" is used to describe their condition since the only change that seems to have occurred is on the "genetic level."
Also found in the amber along with the protozoa, were algae, bacterial colonies, pollen and fungal spores, all appearing like forms we know today. There is even recorded a "snapshot of protozoan behavior." One well-preserved victim was engulfed in the middle of a meal. "A photograph of the bulbous little creature shows it sucking up a colony of bacteria joined end to end just like a strand of spaghetti" (Science, January 8, 1993). This is just how members of this group digest bacteria filament today.
Evolutionary scientists studying this discovery search for an explanation of how these organisms have avoided the affects of natural selection since their model says that up to a point the protozoa and multitudes of other organisms could not escape and evolved from lower forms into more complex forms. We as creationists predict that anytime we find records of life from the past they will be just like the ones we find today, because God created them--and this is exactly what is found!
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