A Real Sea Dragon

Genesis 1:21
“And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that [it was] good.”

Because the vast open seas were largely unknown to so many in the ancient world, early explorers were filled with great fear about monsters that might live in unknown regions. After centuries of exploration on and under the sea, we have learned that the seas hold far more beauty than beasts.

One of the most beautiful and unusual creatures in the sea is the sea dragon. Sea dragons are not monsters; the largest members of their family reach a length of only 18 inches. They belong to a family that includes more than 200 types of sea horses and pipefish. Yet, they look completely unlike any other fish. Most of them look like seaweed with eyes and a snout, something like a sea horses’, on one end.

The shapes of sea dragons are the most varied and unusual in the animal world, and their colors are among the brightest. Unlike other fish, they have no scales. They draw tiny marine organisms into their mouths through a trap door jaw that opens and closes more rapidly than the human eye can follow. The eyes of the sea dragon move independently of each other. And when it’s time to start a family, it is the father sea dragon who incubates the fertilized eggs in a pouch in his tail.

Like some other creatures we have talked about on “Creation Moments,” the sea dragon is such a unique creature that evolutionists admit they have no idea how it evolved. These are the very creatures we’d expect to find if all things were created by God!

Prayer:
Dear Lord, as I look about the creation, I can see that You love beauty. I thank You for all the beauty and wonder You have created, and I ask that You would help me to make my life a beautiful offering to You. Amen.

Notes:
Pennisi, Elizabeth. 1985. “Ghosts and Dragons.” Discover, Nov., p. 80. Photo: Courtesy of Richard Ling. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.