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Did you ever stop to think what a great imagination that God has? I want to share something with you that partly shows me how big His imagination really is. |
One of the things that I enjoy doing is studying insects. I really enjoy looking a beetles and finding out more about them. When I started studying them, I was very surprised how many different kinds there are. Scientists have found a total of about two million different types of life on earth. Bacteria, plankton, flowers, worms, mushrooms, birds and animals are examples. But, if you line up all two million types of life in a row, how often do you think that you would find a beetle? Actually, every time you pass four types of life, you will find a beetle in the fifth spot. That is right, about four hundred thousand different types of beetles have been found.
What is even more amazing is that scientists think that there are actually between two and twenty million different kinds of beetles actually living on the earth. How do you think they decided that? Well, it works like this. About fifteen years ago, scientists developed a special machine that they could send up into a tree and spray insecticide in a certain direction. That was important because trees in the tropical rain forests are very dangerous to climb. Before that machine, the only way that you could get into a tree was to build a tower next to it. That took a long time and did not get done very often.
With the new fogging machine, the scientists went into the jungle and found the tree that they wanted to study. They then spread sheets of cloth or large funnels under the tree. They used a crossbow to shoot an arrow with a rope over a limb at the top of the tree. Then they pulled the fogging machine up into the tree. By remote control, they could then fog a certain branch. They were very surprised that when they studied the insects that dropped out of the tree, they found that most of them had never been seen before. Furthermore, when the machine was pulled up into the tree to a higher level, different insects were found. Then, when they went to a different type of tree, new insects were found again.
The scientists then counted how many different insects that they found at each level of each type of tree. Then they used their computers to project how many types of beetle that there probably were.
If you were asked to design four hundred different types of beetles, how long do you think it would take you? How soon do you think it would take you to run out of ideas? Would you have thought to put a machine gun into a beetle? That is what God did.
The bombardier beetle is a marvel of imaginative engineering. God must have had a lot of fun putting it together.
The bombardier has special
glands in its back end that can aim and spray a hot irritating chemical that
will make any enemy let it go. The explosion is pulsed about 20 times in one
second. Furthermore, it can aim it in any direction. They must be good to eat,
because when they run past an ant nest, ants will often grab them by the leg.
The beetle will then aim at the ant and a small explosion will occur inside of
the beetle's glands that will spray the ant. The ant will then run away and
spend several minutes trying to clean the chemicals off of its face.
The chemicals that the beetle uses to pull this off are highly explosive. Then why doesn't the beetle blow itself up? Well, God provided a special storage area in the beetle that also has a chemical that keeps the chemicals from reacting. The beetle can store enough of the chemicals for about 20 attacks. Then when it needs to defend itself, it squirts a little of this mixture of chemicals into a chamber which has another chemical that will activate the explosion. The beetle has nerves and muscles that it uses to control this action and also aim at the ant.
If an animal like a toad tries to eat the beetle, the same thing will happen. Many years ago, when most people traveled across the country by train, two entomologists were traveling on the train. When the train stopped to put water in the tank car, they went into a nearby field to collect some insects. One man caught a beetle and held it in his left hand. Just when the train blew its whistle to let everyone know that it was getting ready to leave again, he caught a bombardier beetle in his right hand. He went running back to the train and by the time he got there the train was moving. He wanted to keep the beetles, but he had a problem. Since the train was moving, he could not get on it without grabbing the handrail. So, without thinking, he popped the bombardier beetle into his mouth and grabbed the hand rail. He was very surprised by what happened in his mouth!
The man later wrote in his journal that he immediately felt a small pop in his mouth and felt a hot burning sensation. As soon as he could, he spit out the beetle!
God cares a lot for that little beetle for him to spend so much time and care to give the beetle such a good way to protect himself. If He loves the beetle that much, how much more do you think He loves you?
Written by Dr. Ron
1999