THE EUMENES WASP
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=16535.0
This wasp occurs in my country of origin, so I'm happy to be able to say that I can testify to the accuracy of some of this from what I personally saw. However the full details are taken from various authors, such as Henri Fabre, whose observations carry more weight.
After mating has ocurred, the female wasp begins the process of confounding evolutionists (and amazing me, when I saw it doing this).
She actually builds what looks like a hollow igloo made out of mud, and sticks it on a wall or the underside of a roof. The mud is made of her own spittle, dust, and small stones. It’s quite a structure, too: about 1 cm in diameter, and 1 cm deep.
At the top, she creates an opening, and curves the lip of the opening backwards, much like the lip of a round ornamental vase. She decorates the nest with shiny pebbles too!
She then catches and stings small green grubs.
Now hear this you unbelievers, and marvel with me. She stings them - but does not kill them, merely inducing partial paralysis. This keeps the game fresh and not putrefying. I wonder how many wasps take degrees in anaesthesiology!!
Somehow, the wasp knows what sex her offspring is going to be!!! If male, she catches fewer grubs, and if female she catches more. Here's J H Fabre describing the Ammophila wasp:
http://www.pdbooksonline.com/free_books/The_Wonders_Of_Instinct_by_J_H_Fabre/page_23.php
'But the egg is laid when the provisions are stored; and this egg has a determined sex, though the most minute examination is not able to discover the differences which will decide the hatching of a female or a male.
We are therefore needs driven to this strange conclusion: the mother knows beforehand the sex of the egg which she is about to lay; and this knowledge allows her to fill the larder according to the appetite of the future grub.
What a strange world, so wholly different from ours! We fall back upon a special sense to explain the ™ hunting; what can we fall back upon to account for this intuition of the future? Can the theory of chances play a part in the hazy problem? If nothing is logically arranged with a foreseen object, how is this clear vision of the invisible acquired?'
Fabre asks a question it's impossible for evolution to answer.
But the wonders aren't over yet.
Where is the mother to lay her extremely fragile eggs? If she lays them in the mass of grubs, then they might squash it as they wriggle around.
Fabre says that he and his friends were astonished at the answer, and admits that he was unable to guess it. Before you read further, can you guess it?
The mother suspends the egg by a silken thread from the ceiling, out of reach of the grubs. When it hatches, it is suspended by its hindquarters, and can raise itself out of danger if a grub becomes too frisky.
She has also built an escape route for it, a protecting sheath that he failed to observe initially, because it was so well hidden.
Now wasps have a brain the size of a mustard seed. And yet, the mother is able to do all this - without having been taught - after all, she never sees her own mother, who dies after all the above is done.
How can she possibly
1 know how to make mud?
2 know how to build an igloo?
3 know which grubs to catch?
4 know how much venom to inject, and where to inject it so it paralyses, but doesn't kill?
5 And who thought up the idea of hanging the egg from the ceiling?
6 And how does a wasp learn how to manufacture a silk thread?
7 And how did all that get into the chromosomes?
The only answer is that the whole thing was carefully and competently designed.
And if it was designed, then there was a Designer.
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=16535.0
This wasp occurs in my country of origin, so I'm happy to be able to say that I can testify to the accuracy of some of this from what I personally saw. However the full details are taken from various authors, such as Henri Fabre, whose observations carry more weight.
After mating has ocurred, the female wasp begins the process of confounding evolutionists (and amazing me, when I saw it doing this).
She actually builds what looks like a hollow igloo made out of mud, and sticks it on a wall or the underside of a roof. The mud is made of her own spittle, dust, and small stones. It’s quite a structure, too: about 1 cm in diameter, and 1 cm deep.
At the top, she creates an opening, and curves the lip of the opening backwards, much like the lip of a round ornamental vase. She decorates the nest with shiny pebbles too!
She then catches and stings small green grubs.
Now hear this you unbelievers, and marvel with me. She stings them - but does not kill them, merely inducing partial paralysis. This keeps the game fresh and not putrefying. I wonder how many wasps take degrees in anaesthesiology!!
Somehow, the wasp knows what sex her offspring is going to be!!! If male, she catches fewer grubs, and if female she catches more. Here's J H Fabre describing the Ammophila wasp:
http://www.pdbooksonline.com/free_books/The_Wonders_Of_Instinct_by_J_H_Fabre/page_23.php
'But the egg is laid when the provisions are stored; and this egg has a determined sex, though the most minute examination is not able to discover the differences which will decide the hatching of a female or a male.
We are therefore needs driven to this strange conclusion: the mother knows beforehand the sex of the egg which she is about to lay; and this knowledge allows her to fill the larder according to the appetite of the future grub.
What a strange world, so wholly different from ours! We fall back upon a special sense to explain the ™ hunting; what can we fall back upon to account for this intuition of the future? Can the theory of chances play a part in the hazy problem? If nothing is logically arranged with a foreseen object, how is this clear vision of the invisible acquired?'
Fabre asks a question it's impossible for evolution to answer.
But the wonders aren't over yet.
Where is the mother to lay her extremely fragile eggs? If she lays them in the mass of grubs, then they might squash it as they wriggle around.
Fabre says that he and his friends were astonished at the answer, and admits that he was unable to guess it. Before you read further, can you guess it?
The mother suspends the egg by a silken thread from the ceiling, out of reach of the grubs. When it hatches, it is suspended by its hindquarters, and can raise itself out of danger if a grub becomes too frisky.
She has also built an escape route for it, a protecting sheath that he failed to observe initially, because it was so well hidden.
Now wasps have a brain the size of a mustard seed. And yet, the mother is able to do all this - without having been taught - after all, she never sees her own mother, who dies after all the above is done.
How can she possibly
1 know how to make mud?
2 know how to build an igloo?
3 know which grubs to catch?
4 know how much venom to inject, and where to inject it so it paralyses, but doesn't kill?
5 And who thought up the idea of hanging the egg from the ceiling?
6 And how does a wasp learn how to manufacture a silk thread?
7 And how did all that get into the chromosomes?
The only answer is that the whole thing was carefully and competently designed.
And if it was designed, then there was a Designer.
