The Early Bug Gets the Water

Job 38:26
“To cause it to rain on the earth, where no man is; on the wilderness, wherein there is no man….”

How do you get the water you need in a desert in which it almost never rains? We have often looked here at how God’s designs in nature show us practical designs we may never think of. The water-hoarding beetle provides us with one more such example.

This particular beetle is found in southwestern Africa in the Namibian Desert where it almost never rains. Early in the morning, a fog settles over the desert. Any water that might condense out of it is quickly evaporated by the sun and daily winds that come later in the day. But the beetles are up early to collect the water from the fog on their backs. Their back shell has tiny bumps about a half millimeter in diameter. The tops of the bumps are covered with a material that attracts water. The valleys between the bumps are coated with a waxy material that repels water. So, when large-enough droplets of water collect on the bumps, they roll down into the waxy valleys, and down those valleys into the beetle’s mouth. Researchers have duplicated the beetle’s covering and found that such coverings will aid desert survival for man.

This design also teaches us that these beetles and all the other myriad living things in creation were not produced by mindless evolution, but by a loving, caring Creator. p.a.b.

Prayer:
Lord, we thank You for all Your good gifts in season, even the rain, but most of all we thank You for Your love. Amen.

Notes:
nytimes.com/2001/11/06/science/06OBSE.html. Photo: Racing Stripe Darkling Beetle from the Namibian Desert. Courtesy of Hans Hillewaert. (CC BY-SA 3.0)