The Giraffe’s Long Neck - Creation Moments

Genesis 1:25

“And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.”

The sun sets in the Serengeti – that fabulous, rich ecosystem in Northern Tanzania, described as one of the seven natural wonders of the world. Trees are silhouetted on the horizon against the deep orange sky. But some of those trees appear to be walking! They aren’t trees after all – they are giraffes.

The reason they are so distinctive, even in silhouette, is the neck. It has to prompt the question “why?” Evolutionists attempt to answer the question by assuming that the giraffe neck started shorter and that a process of elongation took place. Darwinists are horrified at the thought that we might accuse them of a “Just So” style story of giraffe evolution as they stretched upwards to eat ever-higher leaves. But they still assume that natural selection selected offspring with the longer necks so that they could exploit this aerial food source. I have always found that mechanism one of the weakest of all evolutionary ideas. There are a lot of trees and bushes that are well below their head height, yet still form major portions of the giraffe’s diet. Did Darwinian natural selection get over-enthusiastic? And even if they do feed from higher places, why evolve a longer neck rather than the ability to climb the tree?

When viewed from a biblical perspective, we see them so differently. Giraffes are beautiful. God is glorified by these magnificent creatures, so different from anything else. Let’s thank Him for the sheer variety of His creation.

Prayer: How awesome is Your creation, Lord God. How we marvel at creatures like the giraffe, which You made for Your good pleasure. Amen.

Author: Paul F. Taylor

Ref: Encyclopaedia Britannica, < https://www.britannica.com/animal/giraffe >, accessed 9/26/2019. Image: Adobe Stock Images, licensed to author.