GOD IN ALL: PART 3 - CREEPING, SWIMMING AND FLYING THINGS

Creeping, Flying and Swimming Things

Insects beyond count or belief
aid us despite lives that are brief.
Vital crops need pollination
dead matter - decomposition.
Dragonflies control pests that bite,
devouring prey in mid-flight.
Designs for defense they supply,
but we can't match God's dragonfly!

Miracles of metamorphosis
turns caterpillar into chrysalis.
Evolutionists can't explain
how liquid mush is rearranged
into beautiful stain glass wings
struggling to emerge, new life springs.
The new has come, the old has gone
as our hearts to Jesus are drawn.

Hummingbirds that weigh less than a dime

Billiard ball size are ostrich eyes

Ten thousand avian species;

falcons, flamingoes, wrens and magpies

parrots, peacocks, owls and kiwis.

What profusion of plumage divine!

Each sparrow's life accounted for

God's love for us means so much more.

Hollow bones hold air for flight

feathers all ordered by size and type

tails that steer, balance and brake

wings streamlined for maximum uptake.

How do they know where to go?

Across oceans from North to South Pole?

Navigation unexplained

each bird migration  is God sustained.

Heart of the Earth; seas foam and roar

Home to life most extraordinaire.

Frogfish walk along ocean floor

world's fastest bite, prey beware!

Leafy sea dragons camouflage

as plants so predators are dodged.

Fairy fantasia floats on by

lighting up pink to stay alive.

Who can fathom God's blue abyss

unexplored and mysterious?

Creepy creatures dwell in the dark deep

Schools of fish swim and dolphins leap.

Plankton produces our oxygen

balancing life through God's ocean.

Vibrant marine life abounding

Breathtaking beauty, astounding!

Yet even more astonishing...

God casts all our sins into the sea

forever forgotten, never retrieved

because the cross counted the cost,

true love set us free.

©Tavane Nelson, May 10, 2021

Poetry by nature strips meaning down to the briefest amount of words possible.  This makes it even more difficult to pick and choose what to include. The diversity and complexity of God's creation boggles the mind. Who can just choose one insect out of the 925 million identified species? Or even one butterfly out of the 17,500  recorded species? Or one of the 230,000 species of creatures that live in the ocean? (And another estimated 2 million that remain a mystery) Or to choose just one bird from 10,000 species? Each created living thing is so complex and mysterious. Only someone with creativity and great intelligence could conceive of each and every living thing. The odds of single celled organisms coming out of mud and  giving rise to what we see today just doesn't make logical sense! 

Consider the honey bee that has the ability to communicate to other bees the precise location of flowers through a dance that expresses distance in relation to the sun and the hive? How can the Monarch butterfly, who has never met its parents, find its way 3000 miles from Canada to Mexico to the same tree their parents wintered at? Look at the complex ant colony that is organized into worker and soldier ants.  There are insects that look like sticks, green leaves, and even a humming bird! There are so many butterflies and moths that are spectacular.  There are birds with beautiful colors whose wings are an engineering feat. An Alpine swift can fly up to six months without stopping. The creatures in the depths of the ocean are even more mystifying as anyone who has been to an aquarium will agree.  Those few photos of the ones in the deepest of depths defy explanation with their own electricity making fishing rods to lure prey. The beauty and complex creation of God is endless with yet more discoveries to be made.

Dragonfly compound eyes

Interesting facts about creatures:

Insects:

• There are 5000 species of dragon flies.
• Dragonflies can hover and fly in any direction including sideways and backwards. Their four wings can switch directions and move independently.
• Dragonflies have huge compound eyes, which contain 30,000 facets. They have near 360 vision.
• Bio engineers used the dragonfly eye as inspiration to create predictive vision for driverless cars, as well as its wings for the Skeeter military surveillance drone.
• A dragonfly catches and can eat its prey in mid-air, and can eat up to 300 mosquitoes per day.
• Butterflies taste with their feet. Butterfly wings move in a figure eight motion.
• Caterpillars have 12 eyes.
• The largest butterfly has a 12 inch wingspan.

Birds:

• No one can explain how birds navigate long distances across ocean without getting lost.
• It's a miracle how birds know exactly how much to eat, in relation to the distance and speed needed for migration.
• The Arctic Tern has the longest migratory route covering 35,000 km from the North to South Pole
• A Bar-tailed Godwit broke the record in 2020 for longest non stop migration at 12,200 km, over 11 days from Alaska to New Zealand.
• Only birds have hollow bones and feathers which are needed for flight. The hollow bones provide more oxygen. Feathers are beautifully designed complex engineering structures.
• Canadian Geese fly in the V formation to conserve energy as birds takes turns being the leader, who takes on the most energy splitting the current. The leader falls back and lets another take over when he tires.
• The Peregrine Falcon is the fastest animal on the planet with a swooping speed of 322 km an hour.
• An ostrich can kill a lion with one kick.
• Hummingbirds beat their wings as fast at 50 times per second.
• Ravens are extremely intelligent and can mimic human speech better than many parrots.
• Owls can almost turn their heads 360 degrees but they cannot move their eyes.
• The penguin is the only bird that can swim but not fly. They are also the only bird to walk upright.

Peacock feather magnified 40x. Photo by Waldo Nell

Ocean life:

• Oceans cover over 70% of the Earth's surface.
• 97% of all water from our planet and almost all rain is from the ocean.
• Scientists estimate that approximately 90% of the ocean species have yet to be discovered and 80% of the ocean has not yet been explored.
• Microscopic ocean plants (phytoplankton) provide 70% of the Earth's oxygen. In comparison, the Amazon Rain forest supplies 6% at most.
• Oceans are Earth's largest solar energy collector which stabilizes our climate system.
• Mariana's Trench is the deepest part of the ocean. The deepest point is 36,200 feet, measuring 1.2 miles higher than Mount Everest.

Leafy Sea Dragon

Angler Fish from the Abyss zone

Pink See Through Fantasia (Sea Cucumber)

• Frogfish have the quickest bite of any vertebrate on earth, faster than the blink of an eye (1/6000 of a second). They also walk on their fins.
• Anglerfish have a dangling lure they use to attract prey, that is filled with bacteria that make their own light.  By pulsing the light and moving the lure back and forth, they successfully attract pelagic crustaceans, fishes, and other prey. 
• Like seahorses, the male leafy sea dragon takes care of the fertilized eggs until they hatch. Leafy sea dragons have no predators because of their excellent camouflage and tough jointed plates.
• Not much is known about the pink sea through fantasia, a sea cucumber, as it was first discovered in 2007.  It emits its own light to scare off predators and it's intestines are all visible. 

Genesis 1:21

So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.