The Octopus with a Shell

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.”

While the nautilus is a familiar sea creature that lives in a shell, it is actually more like the squid and the octopus. Like the squid and the octopus, the nautilus has a well-developed nervous system, mouth, eyes and tentacles and can swim backward quite rapidly by shooting jets of water. It also builds itself a shell home in which to live. As it grows, it needs a larger compartment within its shell, and it moves forward in its ever-widening shell and closes off the cramped quarters behind. But unlike the average shellfish, the nautilus leaves a fleshy tube of its body in the old “room.” This tube extends all the way back to the first room it occupied. This fleshy cord is used to make the shell buoyant by flooding chambers or forcing water out of them. The nautilus is a swimmer, not a crawler!

The living nautilus is found in the southwestern part of the Pacific and eastern Indian oceans and looks exactly like the fossil specimens of the nautilus found in those rock layers containing what evolutionists say are the earliest forms of life. There is absolutely no evidence of evolution here!

God’s creativity seems to be unlimited as we see more of the amazing ways He has chosen to design His creatures, and the nautilus is just one more example of God’s abilities.

Prayer:
Heavenly Father, help me to come to You in prayer in all situations. When I am in need, help me to remember to cast all things on You, for Your power, thinking and creativity are truly unlimited. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

Notes:
Margaret Helder, “Marine Beauty Rediscovered,” Creation Science DIALOGUE, Vol. 15, No.3, October 1988, pp. 6-7. Photo: Nautilus. Courtesy of Manuae. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.