- Series:Fossils, Transcript English
Genesis 1:20
“And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.”
Like so many children over the last century, I was given a book about dinosaurs when I was a small boy. This book contained references to a number of extinct creatures other than dinosaurs, and one of the most fascinating to me was ichthyosaur.
The word ichthyosaur means fish lizard. The animal looked like a fish but appeared to be reptilian in nature. My old dinosaur book seemed to suggest that ichthyosaur was a sort of reptilian analog of the whale and, like that giant sea mammal, had evolved from a land-based animal.
Fossils of ichthyosaurs are fairly common. One interesting point to note is that a few adult ichthyosaurs have been found, fossilized, with a smaller ichthyosaur inside them. A well-known fossil at London’s Natural History Museum shows an ichthyosaur apparently giving birth. These fossils provide evidence that this creature gave birth to live young, whereas most reptiles lay eggs. So an evolutionist has to explain not only the transition from land reptile to sea creature, but also the transition from shelled egg to live birth. Given that these fossils are fairly common, the lack of the possible transitional forms is a major setback for evolutionists.
British creation writer Geoff Chapman wrote back in the 1990s that these remarkable animals show no sign of evolution and every indication that they were given a design well-suited to their environment: the sea. As sea creatures, they would have been made by God on the fifth day of creation, while land reptiles were not made until Day Six. Author: Paul F. Taylor
Thank You, Lord, for the wonderful diversity of Your creation. Thank You that every animal was designed by You for a purpose. Amen.
Ref: Chapman, G. (1996), Ichthyosaurs—created to live in the sea, Creation 18(2):14–15
March 1996. Image: Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 3.0 Unported.
