The Chuckwalla Lizard -- By Rebekah Meinsen
The Chuckwalla lizard is one amazing animal! One cool thing he does happens when he is in danger. He crawls into a crevice of a rock and expands himself by taking air into his lungs so that a predator can’t get him out! The chuckwalla does something else that no animal we know does!
Living in the desert, the Chuckwalla doesn’t get much water. He eats all the juicy plants that he can get, stores the water from the plants in special glands and grows fat from all the food. Most of the desert plants absorb a lot of salt from the ground, so the Chuckwalla lizard absorbs too much salt from eating all those plants, which he could die from. But God made this lizard to have small glands behind his nose, so when salt builds up on them, he sneezes out pure salt!
One part of the evolutionary theory says animals have become more complex over time, and they evolved things when they were sure they needed it. If that was true, then by the time the Chuckwalla realized he needed those glands he would die!
God is so wonderful to create this lizard with this special ability! Even the Chuckwalla lizard knows that the hand of the Lord has made him (Job 12:7-9)!
The Bengal Tiger -- By Isaac Tovar
The Bengal tiger lives in India, Bangladesh, Bengal, Nepal, Bhutan and Burma. It lives in mangrove swamps in the winter and lives in the forests of the Himalayas in the summer. An excellent swimmer, the tiger is also the most water-loving of the big cats. It can often be found by rivers and water holes where it can ambush prey or cool off in the water. The tiger occupies a territory that is dense in vegetation so it can stalk its prey unseen.
The Bengal tiger usually breeds in the spring when the female becomes fertile for three to seven days. After mating, the male stays with the female for a few days. The male then leaves the female and has no further part in rearing the cubs. About 15 weeks later, two to four cubs are born. The female gives them milk for six months although the mother brings them small prey when the cubs are six weeks old. Once they are old enough they will join their mother hunting to learn how to survive on their own. By the age of 18 months the cubs are able to feed themselves.
The Bengal tiger can kill prey large enough for three meals. After a kill, the tiger drags or carries its prey out of sight to feed. The tiger usually begins with the hindquarters, but eventually eats almost every part of its prey, including the skin and the hair, which help with digestion. The tiger can eat up to 66 lbs. of meat at one time and once it has eaten its fill, it covers the remains of its prey with leaves, returning to the carcass each night until it is finished. Like most big cats, it will eat meat that has begun to rot.
God made the Bengal tiger beautiful, yet powerful, like himself. Whenever we see the Bengal tiger, we should praise and fear the Almighty God.
Worship the Lord in the beauty of His holiness; fear before Him, all the earth.
Psalms 96:9
The Woodpecker -- By Rebekah Meinsen
The woodpecker is an amazing creature! It has a few special traits that show how the woodpecker could not have evolved but was created by God.
Evolution says that creatures don’t evolve a trait until they are sure they will need it. Let’s say that the woodpecker tried to peck into a tree, but he shattered his beak, so he couldn’t eat and he died. That’s doesn’t happen, though, because God made this bird to have an extra strong beak! If evolution were true, then the woodpecker wouldn’t be alive to evolve his beak!
This bird also has some extra cartilage between the beak and skull to serve as a shock absorber! This is kind of like what is found in many tennis shoes. Sometimes they have shock absorbers in the heel. This helps when your feet press down so they don’t get hurt from the pressure. It was actually God who invented that, not Nike!
Another problem with the evolutionary theory is that the woodpecker would have trouble staying on the tree. When he started to bang on the tree, he would have fallen off because the hit would be too hard. Then he would have broken a wing, preventing him from getting food, and then he would have died.
That doesn’t happen, because God made the woodpecker with special feet! When he perches, he sits with two claws on the front and two in the back! Most birds sit with three claws in the front and one in the back. He also uses his tail feathers for the tripod effect, for balance!
So that is the amazing woodpecker! Let’s thank the Lord that He made these awesome animals. Even the woodpecker knows that the hand of the Lord has made him!
Job 12:7-9
The King Cobra -- By Isaac Tovar
The king cobra lives in South and Southeast Asia. It lives at the base of the Himalayas where there are clearings, bamboo thickets and borders of forests.
A female king cobra will find a home in one of these areas where she digs a hole to lay her eggs. She lays about forty to fifty eggs. In seventy to seventy-seven days, the eggs hatch. When all the eggs are hatched, the female leaves them to fend for themselves.
The king cobra eats lizards, snakes and even other venomous snakes. In fact, the generic name for the king cobra means “snake-eater”. The king cobra hunts for his prey by “tasting” the air with his tongue. When he finds his prey he will prepare to strike. He spreads his neck into a hood making him look even bigger and scarier. He bites his prey and injects venom into it. After a while, the prey becomes paralyzed. When this happens, the king cobra dislocates his jaws and “walks” on them while swallowing his prey whole!
God created the king cobra on the sixth day of creation (Genesis 1:24). Most people don’t care too much for snakes (Genesis 3:15). Perhaps when we think of the king cobra, we can be reminded that Satan, like the king cobra, is an excellent, swift hunter, searching for prey whom he may strike down.
Have you heard about the Rottweiler that dialed 911 and saved its master’s life? Or about another dog that got its family out of bed because their house was on fire? Dogs are amazing animals. There are many different breeds; some are big, some are little, some are bald, and some are extremely furry. We’ve all heard the saying that a dog is man’s best friend. In a lot of ways, that is true.
Dogs can be trained to do different things. Labrador Retrievers are often trained to lead the blind. They can know when it is safe to cross the street, and help their blind owner shop. Are we to believe that these dogs were an accident?
Another good breed of dog is the German Shepherd. These dogs are often trained to assist the police. They can sniff out bombs in luggage, and they were also used after 9-11 to sniff for people buried beneath the rubble. Only God could make a dog this intelligent!
Saint Bernards are often used to look for people that may have been buried under snow, or lost in the mountains. When he finds them, he will soon bring them to safety. A dog with this much loyalty to humans can only be the result of an intelligent Creator.
Newfoundland dogs and Golden Retrievers (related to Labrador Retrievers) often save drowning people. These dogs are good swimmers, and have the right kind of fur and paws that make them equal to the job. Only God could have put this kind of courage into dogs.
Dogs can also sense when there is going to be a storm, or an earthquake. Some dogs can tell when their owners are about to have a seizure, and communicate to them so that they can get to safety before they have a seizure.
Dogs are amazing animals! There is no way that these wonderful dogs were a result of evolution. They are so intelligent, loyal, and courageous, that they are another living proof of God!
The Octopus -- Parts 1 & 2 -- By Rebekah Meinsen
What has a huge head, eight arms, a beak, and lives in the ocean? Though it does sound like an alien, it really is just an octopus! I’m sure that most of us know what an octopus is, but they are even more intelligent than many of us may think!
Octopuses (yes, the plural for octopus is octopuses, not octopi) are part of the phylum called mollusks. Clams, squids, conchs, sea snails, and many others are all part of this group. One characteristic of them all is their shells. You probably didn’t know that octopuses have shells, because their shells actually aren’t visible! Their shells are on the inside, and are called internal shells. Cuttlefish and squids, both part of the class cephalopods, have internal shells as well.
When octopuses mate, the male usually dies. Then the mother lays eggs, and cares for them. The whole time she is caring for them, she doesn’t eat. Then, about four months later when the eggs hatch, the mother dies of starvation. Baby octopuses are born fully developed, but are really small! Even though they are so small, they can fend for themselves at that age.
One of the most interesting things that octopuses do is change colors. They are not like the chameleon that gradually changes color to match its surroundings. The octopus changes color immediately to blend in, but also to reflect its mood. When they are angry, they will turn red; when stressed, they turn pale; when relaxed, a dull brown or orange; and when scared, white. Isn’t that awesome?
The last thing that we will discuss is their intelligence. Scientists were shocked at how smart these animals are. They are related to clams, and cowries, who most people don’t realize are even animals! Using problem solving skills, octopuses have been known to get out of their aquariums, and climb on board ships to open and eat buckets of crabs! They have also navigated mazes that scientists have set up! Not a lot of animals can do things like that!
Wow! God really made these creatures amazing! I can’t believe that people would think that these animals are an accident! Only an intelligent Creator would come up with an animal like the octopus!
Last month, we discussed some of the octopuses’ features. This month, we’ll look at two different body parts of the octopus and how they also show God’s awesome power.
The first body part is the octopuses’ arms. As most of us know, they have eight arms. On each arm is a double row of suckers. They are so sensitive that they can distinguish objects. Even though they are sensitive, they are very strong as well. Octopuses will use these suckers to crawl along the ocean floor to look for food. They use them to fasten themselves to their prey. When they leave their hiding places at night to look for food, they still keep an arm or two attached to their den so that they can make a quick escape to safety if needed.
The second body part is the octopuses’ eye, and I think it is amazing. It is so complex, but people seem to think that it happened by chance! The first way that it is different and better than our eyes, is because it doesn’t have a blind spot like we do. A blind spot is where we can’t see in a certain place, because our photoreceptors (the parts of our eyes which detect light) are behind the nerves. Therefore light has to go through the nerves before the eye can detect the light, resulting in a spot where we can’t see. Octopuses’ nerves are behind the photoreceptors, so that the nerves bundle up and go to the brain, leaving no blind spot.
The second way that their eye is so complex is the lens. Our eye changes shape to focus, but the octopuses’ moves back and forth to focus in on an object. This is the way a camera focuses, and it leaves a sharper picture.
Since God loves His creatures so much, and He took the time to design the octopus so carefully, imagine how much He loves us! We are God’s children created in His image, and He cares for us so much more than an octopus! How could people say that God did not make everything on this earth, and that it all happened by chance? The octopus is just one proof of an intelligent and loving God!
The Electric Eel -- By Isaac Tovar
About two hundred years ago a German named Alexander von Humboldt went to the Amazon Rain Forest in Brazil. He found a pool with lots of eels. A fish swam by an eel. Suddenly, the fish lay stunned and the eel ate it. Alexander found out what stunned the fish when he put his foot on the eel. The eel shocked him so his leg hurt for the rest of the day. He discovered this creature was an electric eel.
Electric eels can grow up to ten feet long and can produce enough energy to light up a house. Electric eels also use their electricity as a radar system to detect prey or predators. They produce electricity with an electric organ. It is made up of cells that each produce a little electricity. Together they generate enough electricity to make a shock up to six hundred volts! This amazing fish was created unique by God!
[Editor’s note: Sarah Cowden is currently living as a missionary in Saipan with her dad, Pat, her mom, Maria and her brother, Jacob.]
On the sixth day God created man and animals. There is one animal that I think is a pretty cool animal. The Tasmanian Devil is that pretty cool animal.
Tasmanian Devils live on Tasmania which is off the coast of Australia. Many people think that Tasmanian Devils will come out of the bushes and shrubs and attack. But Tasmanian Devils are shy animals. Female Devils are about the size of English bulldogs. Males are twice the size of females. They are marsupials.
When baby Tasmanian Devils are born they are about the size of tiny grains of rice. The mom has only four nipples in her pouch. The four strongest babies live but the rest die.
The newborn devils can fit on a coin about the size of a nickel. When they get about six months old, the mother starts to roam and leaves her young at the den. The young have no mother to guard them for a long time; sometimes even a night or two, but she comes home after a while with food for the young to eat.
God made Tasmanian Devils the clean up crew for Tasmania. They eat animals that are rotting. Tasmanian Devils are carnivores. They eat anything that has meat. They eat small mammals like wombats. God knew when he made Tasmanian Devils that they would clean up Tasmania.
Most of the information I got was from www.tassiedevil.com.au if you would like to visit it. Also on this site you can listen to what a Tasmanian Devil sounds like!