Last spring, the periodical cicadas emerged across eastern North America. Their vast numbers and short above-ground life spans inspired awe and irritation in humans—and made for good meals for birds and small mammals. Such snacks do not come without cost, however: Cicadas emit extremely loud shrieks when captured. Perhaps the pattern of the giant silk moth Citheronia azteca (right) evolved to resemble a cicada as a form of Batesian mimicry—imitation by a nonpoisonous species of a poisonous or unappetizing one. So Philip Howse speculates in Giant Silkmoths: Colour, Mimicry and Camouflage (Papadakis, $40 paper), in which he and photographer Kirby Wolfe showcase these members of the Saturniidae family.
Wolfe offers notes on collecting and raising silk moths. But the book’s wealth of photographs serves as collection enough: Viewing page after page of stunning moths from all over the world, I felt the guilty pleasure of seeing more of these creatures than one would ever normally encounter. Caterpillars are well represented also.
Anna Lena Phillips in American Scientist.Here
The mosquito beats its wings some 500 times a second; human beings can manage to wave their arms to a very limited extent in the same amount of time. If scientists could ever build such a powerful mechanism, it would soon burn up due to the intense friction. And yet a mosquito accomplishes this feat for as long as it lives, flying at a high speed in the direction it chooses and for as long as it desires. In addition, it has been endowed with the most perfect maneuvering and landing abilities.
A mosquito requires a high level of oxygen to beat its wings at this speed. Therefore, it has a special respiratory passage that immediately reaches every cell in its body. Since this passage is directly connected to the outside air, its cells engage in oxygen exchange without the need for any intermediate substances. As a result, a mosquito never becomes tired.
Creating such a wing in a creature that is less than1 cm(0.4 inch) in size, together with a respiratory system that makes this possible, is a display of Allah’s astonishing artistry. No coincidence can give rise to such a perfect mechanism in such a complex life form and endow it with perfect functioning, or give it a pair of wings that can beat 500 times per second simultaneously. Such a flawless creature and its amazing wings could not have come into being through random stages, as proposed by Darwin:
Verily whoever dwells in the heavens or the Earth belongs to Allah. Those who invoke others instead of Allah, associating them with Him in His Divinity, only follow conjectures and are merely guessing. (Surah Yunus, 66)
Harun Yahya in Radiance weekly. Here
