Articles

Firebug Discovery

by Anonymous

The beetle Melanophila acuminata has long been known to seek out forest fires so it ‘can lay its eggs in nutritious, freshly burnt wood’. The beetles have been shown to detect fires from over 32 kilometres (20 miles) away, without using hearing or smell.

Now German researchers have discovered how they do it. They have special organs of detection in their chests which can pick up infrared light. The light is converted to heat, which is then converted to a mechanical signal. This sort of system has never before been described in any living thing.

The Daily Telegraph, 25 September 1997, p. 9.

One wonders how anyone could conceive of such systems evolving from the accumulation of random mutations. The more that is known, the more we see the awesome diversity of creative design.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v20/i1/focus.asp