Penguins with Sunglasses - Creation Moments

Hebrews 1:3
“Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;”

Have you ever gone outside on a bright, sunny day and been almost blinded by the light? Then imagine what it must be like for penguins to go about their lives with the intense glare of polar sunlight reflecting off a snowy or watery landscape.

Penguins, of course, can’t slip on a pair of sunglasses, but they don’t need to. These marvelous birds have an external eye fluid that filters out blue and ultraviolet wavelengths from the solar spectrum. This gives them clear vision while protecting their eyes from harm. As you might have guessed, eagles, falcons, hawks and other birds of prey also have this fluid.

Inspired by these birds, scientists have been able to develop an orange-colored dye and filter that duplicates the penguin’s retinal fluid. The orange dye has been used to produce orange-tinted sunglasses which provide improved vision in bright sunlight and on foggy days.

According to Donald DeYoung’s book Discovery of Design, many welders now use orange-colored masks that are safer and more transparent than the old-style dark masks that made it difficult for them to see. There is also the hope that orange-tinted glasses may someday help patients suffering from visual loss due to cataracts or macular degeneration.

When engineers and designers look at nature to design new products and product improvements, they are looking at intelligent designs, not the products of chance and billions of years. The “sunglasses” worn by penguins were designed by their Creator!

Prayer: Heavenly Father, I am filled with gratitude that You have given me not only eyes to see the world around me but spiritual eyes that can see the truths in Your Word! Amen.

Author: Steven J. Schwartz
Ref: “Penguin Eye – Sunglasses”, Discovery of Design, D. DeYoung and D. Hobbs, pp. 112-113, Master Books, Second Printing, 2012. Photo: Courtesy of Flip619. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.