Articles

Net-Winged Midges

by Grant Dejong

Some of the most fascinating insects are the net-winged midges. These flies have many features which demonstrate Creation by God and are an enigma to evolutionary thinking.

The adult is a small fly about 3/8 inch (8 mm) long and looks like a mosquito. The larva lives in torrential streams and waterfalls where the flow is so fast that it washes almost every other insect downstream. (In fact, I’ve lost my footing due to the current in some rivers that harbor net-winged midges!) Several species are common in the United States, but they also occur worldwide.

God provided the net-winged midge with several features that allow it to live safely in torrents and waterfalls. Besides being rather streamlined, the larva has a ventral row of six suckers right down the midline! As it moves around on rocks, it uses the suckers to move in a caterpillar-like fashion. By using these suckers, the larva can move safely and efficiently in currents that would wash most other insects away.

A second feature God gave to the net-winged midges relates to their feeding. They feed solely on diatoms. Diatoms are one-celled algae that make a hard shell, and the most nutritious varieties usually attach themselves flat on rocks in torrents and waterfalls. The species of diatoms that do not attach flatly are not very nutritious, so they are not usually eaten. God gave the net-winged midges mouthparts wherein the mandibles are flat and almost protrude from their mouths! This gives them the ability to scrape very effectively, and they can eat the nutritious diatoms that other insect larvae cannot eat.

A third item that God gave the net-winged midges for living in torrential streams is a very curious one. Like other flies, net-winged midges undergo complete metamorphosis, with egg, larva, pupa, and adult stages. Among other changes in the pupa stage, the wings begin to form for the adult insect. Upon emerging from the pupa, most insect adults hang around on a nearby stick, pump hemolymph (blood) into the wings to enlarge them, and wait for them to dry. Net-winged midges cannot wait for wings to dry because the insect is still in the torrent when the adult emerges from its pupa. If it had to wait for its wings to enlarge and dry, it would drown. So God provided that its wings would be ready to go, already expanded, neatly folded and dry, inside the pupa. When the time is right, the pupa releases its hold on its rock and gets carried to the surface. As soon as it hits air, the skin splits, and the adult pops out to fly away with already-dry wings!

Evolutionary scientists place the net-winged midges among the more “primitive” flies but actually aren’t sure where to place them on the evolutionary tree/bush. There are no known fossils of net-winged midge larvae or adults, so all evolutionary analysis must be pure speculation based on current groups. Only one other group of insects have larvae with six midventral suckers: the sandfly genus Maruina. Because of many vast differences between the two groups, even evolutionists conclude that they did not “evolve” from each other or a common ancestor.

Current evolutionary thought attempts to link the net-winged midges with the mountain midges and the nymphomyiid midges, two small and uncommon families of flies, because they all live in torrential streams, they all have “prolegs” on every segment, and they all use the process of folding completely expanded wings in the pupa. The first argument offers no real similarity, because trout often live in similar habitats but are clearly not “closely related.” The second argument is based on tenuous analogies of body parts: the “prolegs” of these three groups look nothing like each other, being attached in different ways and with different endings and different functions. Only the trait of folding their wings in the pupa is truly common to these three groups. However, because of numerous other traits in the nymphomyiid midges, some evolutionists assign these flies to their own, very distant group, effectively destroying the argument that folding dry wings in the pupa indicates evolutionary relatedness.

A quick look at the story of Creation in Genesis tells everyone how the net-winged midges came to be.

Grant DeJongis a board certified entomologist working as an aquatic ecologist/taxonomist with a private aquatic ecology consulting lab.

Grant DeJong is a board certified entomologist working as an aquatic ecologist/taxonomist with a private aquatic ecology consulting lab.

http://discovercreation.org/newlet/Winter%202002.htm