Veggie Shark
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.”
I have had a very irritating song floating around in my head for the last few days. It is a children’s song which mentions a lot of sharks. You know the one. But at least it got me thinking about sharks.
Everyone knows that sharks are ferocious meat-eating killers, right? With a bite that will take your leg off. I am not minimizing the danger of an encounter with a shark in any way when I tell you about a shark reported in New Scientist which eats seagrass.
At first, it was thought that the bonnethead shark was just removing the seagrass to get at the tasty animal morsels hidden within. However, scientists at the University of California Irvine studied some captive bonnetheads and discovered that after a meal of seagrass, the creatures’ digestive system showed evidence of enzyme activity designed specifically to digest plant material. Isotope markers were used to check the progress of certain chemicals from the seagrasss, and it was discovered that 50% of the nutrients from the plants were absorbed by the shark. This is a remarkable degree of efficiency and comparable with known omnivorous and herbivorous fish.
It seems to be common for us to discover that animals once thought to be nearly perfectly carnivorous can have plants in their diet. While evolutionists cannot explain this, creationists would point to the fact that God made all animals originally to eat plants. Meat eating arose only after Adam’s sin polluted the world. Author: Paul F. Taylor
Prayer: Thank You for the provision You have made, Lord, for Your people and also for all of Your creation. Amen.
Ref: We’ve discovered a shark that eats plants as a side dish to shellfish, September 5th 2018, < https://www.newscientist.com/article/2178549-weve-discovered-a-shark-that-eats-plants-as-a-side-dish-to-shellfish/ >, accessed 11/28/2018. Image: Ross Robertson, Public Domain.