Animals Archives

July 28, 2026July 27, 2026

Dragonflies and God’s Design

Imagine what this world would be like if there were no controls on the number of bugs we have to contend with. Insects are part of the food chain on our planet, but there is a difficult balance between insects as food for birds and fish, and making life miserable for humans. God has given us dragonflies to control other insects.

Dragonflies live in various environments, from wetlands to desert pools to mountains, on every continent except Antarctica. There are 3012 species known to science, and they demonstrate God’s genius of design. To catch and eat other insects, dragonflies must be fast enough to outfly them. One dragonfly species has been clocked at 60 mph (96 km/h). They must also make quick turns, and researchers have found that they can experience 9 Gs when turning to catch prey. If a dragonfly gets upside down, it can right itself in .2 seconds.

Dragonflies have a wingbeat of 30 times per second, and their eyes can take in their surroundings and process 200 images per second, allowing them to capture and eat various insects. Dragonflies have virtually no enemies at any stage of life. In the nymph stage, they have gills, so they develop underwater and feed on mosquito larvae, among other things. Unlike most other insects, dragonflies produce relatively few offspring, helping maintain the balance between predator and prey.

Scientists study dragonflies to improve flight technology, and they amaze us with their complexity and design that allows them to be insect predators. In Job 38:39-41, God challenges Job to explain how various forms of life find food. Everywhere we look, we see that a wonder-working hand has gone before. Romans 1:20 tells us that we can know there is a God through the things He has made, and the dragonfly is an example of that truth.

July 16, 2026July 14, 2026

The La Brea Tar Pits Tell Us About Life

One of the world’s most important fossil sites is the La Brea Tar Pits, located just off Wilshire Boulevard in the heart of Los Angeles, California. La Brea is Spanish for “the tar” and refers to oil that pushes up through narrow cracks in the rocks from as deep as 1000 feet underground. As the lighter-weight oil, gas, and other volatiles evaporate, what is left is asphalt, usually covered with water, creating a death trap. When an animal came to drink, it would sink into the asphalt and be unable to escape. The La Brea Tar Pits tell us about life in North America 13,000-plus years ago.

In many cases, as an animal struggled to free itself from the tar, it would be attacked by a predator. The predator would also get stuck, and both the predator and the victim would sink into the tar and die. Then, a bird that ate dead animals, like today’s vultures, would land on the carcass and also get caught.

Most of the fossil remains of the animals found in the La Brea Tar Pits are not animals that exist today. They include saber-toothed cats, dire wolves, giant ground sloths, giant short-faced bears, dwarf pronghorns, American lions, various insects, and even extinct plants. The La Brea Tar Pits tell us about life in the past, not the animals and plants that are abundant on Earth or indigenous to California today.

No dinosaur remains have ever been found at La Brea because they were already extinct. No sea creatures or plants from the age of the dinosaurs have been found. The La Brea Tar Pits provide no evidence to support a 10,000-year limit to Earth’s age nor any evidence that they resulted from the flood of Noah.

Denominational creationism based on religious dogma is not supported by the Bible or physical evidence. The dispensationalist teaching is destructive to the faith of young people who have visited places like La Brea. The Genesis account is undated and is not designed to give a detailed history of life on our planet. The very first verse of Genesis tells us that God created the Earth – not when or how. The La Brea Tar Pits tell us about life in North America during a limited time in Earth’s history. We must speak where the Bible speaks and be silent where the Bible is silent. The Bible is God’s word, and adding to it only dilutes its value and does not help us understand the past.

Reference: Smithsonian magazine April/May 2026, pages 79-87.

July 15, 2026July 14, 2026

How Many Insect Species?

You probably think insects are everywhere, and you would be correct. You will not find a single home in the United States, or anywhere else, that does not have ants, beetles, or spiders. The truth is that we could not live without insects because they fill many beneficial roles in the ecosystem. For the past four decades, scientists have estimated that there are about six million insect species. However, a new study published in June 2026 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) has revised that estimate upward – a lot! How many insect species are there?

Nobody knows for sure, but the new research estimates that there are 14 to 20 million species. That is SPECIES, not the total number of insects. There are “thousands of billions” of individual ants crawling around the planet. Coming up with a total number of individual insects would be impossible, but the number far exceeds the number of people. Don’t let that bother you because they are essential to life on this planet.

The diversity of insects is also amazing. Some are so small we may not even see them. Some fly, and others crawl. We never see some of them because they live as parasites inside other insects. Many clean up organic waste in our environment. Others pollinate our crops. I am sure there are some that you would rather do without, such as flies and mosquitoes, but even they have a purpose. At the same time, you probably appreciate the beauty of butterflies.

One thing is certain. Insects are the most diverse and pervasive group of animals. Only God knows how many insect species there are, but those who study them are discovering new species every year.

Reference: popsci.com

July 8, 2026July 8, 2026

Nighttime Navigation by Ants

It has long been known that various creatures can navigate in the dark. Nighttime navigation helps them find food and mates while avoiding predators. Sand hoppers, moths, and some ant species seem to use the Moon to find their way at night.

Recent studies of nocturnal ants have shown that they use the Moon as a guide for nighttime navigation, but they can also keep track of time to know where the Moon should be. Researchers at France’s University of Toulouse captured bull ants as they were heading to their usual feeding areas and placed them in a darkened box. After several hours of complete isolation from any navigational cues, the researchers released the ants at a new location. The Moon had moved a significant distance, and the ants veered off course, indicating that the Moon was their primary guide in locating their food supply.

Many variables could disrupt this nighttime navigation system. The Moon goes through various phases over the course of a month, and for most of the month it’s not at its maximum brightness. The length of darkness varies as the Sun moves from solstice to equinox and back. None of these variables prevent the ants from finding food and thriving.

The bull ants the researchers studied could use “time-linked” lunar navigation. An entomologist not involved in the study said, “This is just a little bonkers. They need to compensate for the trajectory of the Moon. I mean, I don’t know how to do that.” Researchers also found that ants combine their use of the Moon for navigation with terrestrial and solar cues at dawn and dusk, as visibility varies throughout the lunar month.

The complexity of nighttime navigation makes it difficult to believe it’s a product of blind chance. Proverbs 6:6 advises us to “Go to the ant, consider its ways and be wise.” We have much to learn by looking at the wisdom we see throughout the insect world. It shows God’s wisdom and design and fulfills the statement of Romans 1:20, “…since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so men are without excuse.” We can know there is a God, and the creatures using nighttime navigation demonstrate that.

Reference: Scientific American, June 2026, page 19, and Current Biology.

July 1, 2026June 27, 2026

The Fine-Tuning of the Genetic Code

Yesterday, we examined the fact that the 20 amino acids commonly used in biological proteins are not a random set but are precisely fine-tuned for optimal protein synthesis. But that is only the beginning of the fine-tuning of the genetic code. A series of articles by biologist Dr. Jonathan McLatchie reports on further fine-tuning.

Cell reproduction requires the replication of the DNA contained within those cells. RNA is the molecule that facilitates DNA replication. RNA has 64 different codons–three-letter “words” that are the fundamental units of the genetic code. Of those, 61 specify amino acids that build proteins, and the other three are stop codons that mark the termination point in creating those proteins. As we mentioned before, there are 20 amino acids used for life. Since there are 64 codons, “a marvel of molecular logic” selects the proper amino acids. That coding system shows evidence of a conscious, deliberate, intelligent agent guiding the creation of the genetic code.

The genetic code in living cells seems to be beautifully fine-tuned to protect cells from mutations during replication. As reported by Dr. McLatchie, the statistical rarity of the conventional genetic code is 1 in 2 billion. That does not seem to be a random chance occurrence. But there are additional levels of fine-tuning, including the fact that the genetic code has been written to reduce the impact of frameshift mutations. It’s beyond the scope of this article to discuss what frameshift mutations are, but the point is that the 64-to-20 mapping system is designed to minimize the number of amino acids translated from a frameshifted transcript before a stop codon halts the process.

But that does not fully cover the fine-tuning of the genetic code. It has multiple layers of highly optimized, independent constraints. The genetic code has been established and used by all forms of life on this planet, with each of the 20 amino acids tied to specific codons. Making significant modifications to the code would create major problems in every cell because the relationships between codons and amino acids are essential for every polypeptide (protein) the cell makes.

Dr. McLatchie’s report contains this statement: “Why is the genetic code the way it is, and how did it come to be? That was asked over 50 years ago, at the dawn of molecular biology, (and) might remain pertinent even in another 50 years.” The point I make is that until scientists consider the possibility of an intelligent Agent who designed the genetic code, that question will never be answered. Why not at least consider the possibility that all these signs of the fine-tuning of the genetic code are not merely accidental but the product of design? The reason modern science refuses to do so is that design requires an intelligent Designer.

Reference: scienceandculture.com HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE

June 30, 2026June 26, 2026

The Amino Acid Set Was Fine-Tuned for Life

Organic compounds are large molecules containing carbon and having carbon-hydrogen or carbon-carbon bonds. Many organic compounds are involved in life, and life as we know it could not exist without carbon. One group of organic compounds, known as amino acids, numbers at least 500. Of those, only 20 (or, in some cases, 22) are used in plants and animals. Why and how were these amino acids selected to make living things? Amazingly, the amino acid set was fine-tuned for life.

There are three possibilities for how they could have been “selected.” The selection could have been due to chance, with no intelligent agent involved. It could have been because of necessity, meaning that some kind of law could allow only those amino acids to be selected. The third possibility is selection by an intelligent agent with a purpose. Did this apparent choice happen because of mere chance or because of laws that required no other choice? No known laws required this selection, and chance seems questionable since the choice appears to be perfect.

With many alternatives, why this 20? Would any 20 out of the 500 work just as well? The answer is “No,” according to a research paper published in the journal Astrobiology, titled “Did Evolution Select a Nonrandom Alphabet of Amino Acids?” by Gayle K. Philip and Stephen J. Freeland. They wrote, “Random chance would be highly unlikely to represent the chemical space of possible amino acids with such breadth and evenness in charge, size, and hydrophobicity (properties that define what protein structures and functions can be built).” In other words, these 20 amino acids represent the best choice. You can say that the amino acid set was fine-tuned for life.

We have often talked about the cosmic creation event (“big bang”), the laws of physics, the physical constants, and the fundamental forces of nature as having been fine-tuned for life. It appears that the amino acid set was fine-tuned for life. The amino acids that make up the proteins in our bodies seem to be optimally selected. They must have been selected by an agent with the wisdom and power to design a complex, finely tuned, information-rich system, which we call life. We suggest that the agent is the God of the Bible. Tomorrow, we will examine more fine-tuning within our DNA.

References: scienceandculture.com

June 29, 2026June 23, 2026

The Whites of the Eyes

“Don’t shoot till you see the whites of their eyes!” That was an order given by Colonel William Prescott to the Colonial soldiers at the Battle of Bunker Hill during the American Revolution. The reason for the order was not to get close to the British soldiers to get to know them, but because the Colonial Army was low on ammunition and Prescott wanted to make sure it wasn’t wasted. Seeing the whites of the eyes may be dangerous in warfare, but it’s valuable for communication.

Human eyes come in various colors, such as blue, brown, or green, but that refers to the iris. The area surrounding the iris is called the sclera. In humans, the sclera is white, or at least close to white. That makes us different from other animals, since most mammals have dark eyes. The question is, why are the whites of the eyes the way they are?

In 1997, Shiro Kohshima, a Japanese biologist at Kyoto University, compared the eyes of primates and found that only humans had white in their eyes. He proposed that the white sclera helps us communicate because the contrast between the white and the dark pupils makes it easier to tell where someone is looking. Parents can often tell if their child is telling the truth by whether the child is looking at the parent. When someone looks away, it may mean they are hiding something. The whites of the eyes tend to draw our attention away. When someone looks us directly in the eye, it helps us to bond with that person. Thus, the white sclera helps us communicate or avoid communicating.

In 2007, Michael Tomasello, a psychologist at Duke University, expanded on Kohshima’s theory, developing a cooperative eye hypothesis. He said that the whites of the eyes help us determine what someone is focused on because we are sensitive to where a person is looking. Tomasello conducted experiments on human infants, gorillas, chimpanzees, and bonobos. He did this by looking at the ceiling with only his eyes, only his head, or both, to see how humans and primates would react.

Tomasello found that human infants followed the researcher’s eye direction three times more often when he glanced toward the ceiling with his eyes only than when he tilted his head upward with his eyes closed. He found that the primates did the opposite. For them, following the head movement was more important than following eye movement.

From an early age, humans are very sensitive to eye contact. Within the first few days, babies looked longer at faces that were directed at them. In two to four months, babies learn to follow where others are looking. You can hold the attention of babies by looking directly at them. When the parent looks at an object and names it, this helps the infant connect the name to the object, improving language skills.

Even though some people’s eyes are not as white as others’ due to age, health, or race, humans do show more of the sclera than other animals do. Experiments with humans and chimpanzees indicate that the whites of the eyes enable both humans and chimpanzees to better determine the gaze direction of humans than that of chimpanzees.

The bottom line is that humans have more white in their eyes, giving our eyes greater contrast that draws attention to where we are looking, helps us communicate, helps infants learn language terms, helps us determine the status of someone’s health, and helps us to bond with someone we care about. We can be thankful that God has given humans this exceptional gift, but it may not have been an important factor in helping the Americans win the Revolutionary War.

Reference: popsci.com

June 24, 2026June 22, 2026

Jumping Spider Eyes

Many scientific and technological advances are inspired by the study of animals and plants. Spiders have long inspired innovations, especially related to their silk and web-making. A new development, however, is based on the design of jumping spider eyes.

Jumping spiders (family Salticidae) leap quickly to avoid predators, capture prey, or simply move around. They need good 3D vision to judge distances when they jump. Unlike human eyes, which have only one retina, jumping spider eyes can’t move, but they have multiple retinal layers. These layers capture the image with slightly different focus. Their poppy seed-sized brains then process the images, comparing differences in sharpness to compute the distance to an object.

A computer scientist at Northwestern University, Emma Alexander, and her colleagues have created an extremely efficient 3D camera dubbed a “SpiderCam.” They presented their project on June 7, 2026, at the Computer Vision Foundations Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition in Denver, Colorado. The SpiderCam perceives depth the same way that jumping spider eyes do, by capturing images on two layers of “retinas” with very slight differences in focus. A computer algorithm embedded in a custom chip processes and compares the images to calculate depth and distance. This SpiderCam uses less than a Watt of power to create real-time 3-dimensional images.

Possible uses for the SpiderCam include field recording, where capturing a 3D image with minimal power is essential. It could also be used in augmented reality applications where a person interfaces with the physical world and needs precise location information about surrounding objects.

The advantage of the camera based on jumping spider eyes is that it uses less energy and less expensive hardware than other 3D cameras. Humans continue to learn from animals, and as we discover God’s designs in nature, we can apply them in biomimicry to solve problems in technology and everyday life.

Reference: popsci.com

June 11, 2026June 10, 2026

The Magnetic Mystery of Bird Migration

Scientists have known for decades that birds use Earth’s magnetic field to guide their migrations, but how they detect it has been a mystery. A recent German study published in the journal Science offers insight into this magnetic mystery of bird navigation.

Birds, as well as other animals, have immune cells called macrophages in their livers. Among other duties, these macrophages eliminate old red blood cells. As they digest these no-longer-needed red blood cells, they accumulate iron nanoparticles, making the macrophages superparamagnetic. In other words, they can detect Earth’s magnetic field as the bird passes through it.

To test whether these magnetic macrophages help birds navigate, the researchers used homing pigeons trained to fly 12.4 miles to their aviary. Pigeons without macrophages reached the aviary when the Sun was unobscured, but they got lost when the weather was overcast. This suggests that the birds use Earth’s magnetic field as well as the Sun to guide their flight. Using electron microscopy, the researchers observed that the macrophages were in contact with nerve cells, which could transmit magnetic information directly to the bird’s brain.

Solving the magnetic mystery of bird navigation can explain how birds that migrate at night find their way when the sky is overcast. It may also explain how sharks navigate and how bats migrate in the dark. Birds and other migrators use vision, magnetism, and other methods to find their way. God has designed into living things the features they need to survive.

Reference: popsci.com

May 29, 2026May 27, 2026

Intelligent or Unintelligent?

Causes can be of two types: intelligent or unintelligent. As we look for what caused the universe to come into existence or what caused life to appear on this planet, we should ask whether it was an intelligent cause or an unintelligent one, meaning chance. When you see the Grand Canyon, you can conclude that it was the result of natural forces and therefore not a direct intelligent cause. When you see Mount Rushmore, the mountain itself can be attributed to natural causes, but the faces of four presidents carved into that mountain testify to an intelligent cause.

Darwinists agree that the living things we see around us appear to be designed. But those who reject intelligent causation for living things have to keep reminding themselves that what they’re seeing was not designed by an Intelligence, but rather merely happened by chance. Is that attitude intelligent or unintelligent?

The complexity of DNA is certainly a challenge to those who believe that life happened by chance. However, they also have to contend with the fact that DNA relies on proteins for its structure, while proteins require DNA to provide the instructions for how they are to be constructed and folded. Since each requires the other, which comes first: proteins or DNA?

Spontaneous generation of life from non-life was advocated by Aristotle and accepted by science for 2,000 years until Louis Pasteur disproved it. However, those who believe that life came into being without guiding intelligence from purely natural chemicals must accept the concept of spontaneous generation, even though it is not supported by any empirical observation. Francis Crick, an atheist and co-discoverer of the DNA molecule’s structure, said, “Every time I write a paper on the origin of life, I swear I will never write another one, because there is too much speculation running after too few facts.”

Other scientists, such as Fred Hoyle, recognizing the problem of life’s origin, have proposed panspermia (“seeds everywhere”). That idea suggests that life on Earth was seeded by aliens from another star system. Besides having zero evidence for such a thing, it doesn’t explain where the interstellar life came from, stretches the imagination, and requires a great deal of blind faith. When scientists and others stick to their belief in spontaneous generation or panspermia, is that intelligent or unintelligent?

Physicist and information scientist Hubert Yockey, realizing the difficulty of explaining intelligent life without an intelligent cause, wrote, “The belief that life on earth arose spontaneously from nonliving matter is simply a matter of faith in strict reductionism and is based entirely on ideology.” The faith of those who refuse to believe in intelligent design is not based on scientific evidence but on ideological bias. Do you think that believing in creation without a Creator is intelligent or unintelligent?