Church of Christ Articles

God’s Dragonfly

We have all been to lakes and ponds to enjoy various different activities. I remember when I was a kid and my parents took me to Lake Bastrop State Park which is about 30 miles east of Austin, TX off highway 71. We would camp, fish, play miniature golf, and just enjoy being outdoors among God’s creation. One of the most fascinating creatures that we would watch darting to and fro, hovering here and there, was the dragonfly.

The dragonfly is an amazing creature.

The scientific name for the dragonfly is “odonata.” You most always see the dragonfly near the water because it is an aquatic insect. They lay their eggs in or on top of the water and in one to three weeks (depending upon the species) those eggs hatch into larvae. These larvae eat other insect’s larvae like mosquitoes. They can also eat frog’s eggs and small tadpoles. While the larva stage varies from three months to four years (depending upon the climate), the dragonflies we see around here usually become adults in the same season. Once the larva reach adulthood they climb onto the stem of a plant, shed their larval casing, and pump ‘blood’ into their wings. Then they fly off over land until their reproductive systems mature. After the reproductive systems mature, the dragonfly returns to the water to mate and to lay more eggs. The adult dragonfly may live from a few months to a year depending upon its climate.

Now, if you have ever watched a dragonfly, you know that this insect has amazing maneuverability techniques. They can fly forward and backward. They literally turn on a dime. Their unique eyes (with over 30,000 lenses) give them the ability to see 360 degrees around their body and they need this, because dragonflies can literally execute a hairpin turn at 100 kilometers per hour. At that speed a dragonfly can experience a G-force of about 25 times the gravity of earth. In comparison, the most gravity force that a human fighter pilot can sustain without blacking out is about nine Gs. Pilots black out under such pressures because all of their blood rushes from their head to their legs. But how does the dragonfly keep this from happening?

Surrounding the internal organs of the dragonfly, are special bags of fluid. When the dragonfly executes one of these hairpin turns, these bags of fluid place pressure upon its internal organs. This keeps the ‘blood’ in the dragonfly’s brain from being forced into its lower organs. Because the dragonfly’s ‘blood’ is not forced out of its brain, the oxygen in that ‘blood’ keeps the dragonfly “awake.”

In the December 2003 issue of National Geographic magazine, there is an article that discusses how German scientists, who have studied the dragonfly, are using this same technique to help fighter pilots not black out during sustained periods of high G forces. By placing bags of liquid around the pilots legs, the pilots blood will not be forced out of his brain when executing high G turns and maneuvers. What an amazing design to help pilots fly faster and with greater turning radiuses. That design, however, was first found in the dragonfly.

How do you suppose the dragonfly developed this ability over the eons of time that evolutionists claim that the dragonfly needed to evolve? Without the dragonfly’s ability to see 360 degrees, it would not be able to fly so maneuverably. Without the dragonfly’s “flight suit” it could not sustain the types of maneuvers that it does at the speeds that it does. The dragonfly’s ability to fly depends both upon its ability to see and its ability to handle that type of flight. Evolution could not have evolved the sight of the dragonfly first, because there would have been no need for that sight. Evolution could not have evolved its “flight suit” first, because there would be no need for the “suit.” But if evolution evolved the ability of flight first, the dragonfly would have had a short life span, because it needs the “flight suit” and its ability to see in order to live with such flight. Moreover, given the reproductive cycle of the dragonfly, it would have had to develop all of these capabilities in a single generation for its order to survive.

Evolutionists must claim that the dragonfly evolved its capability of flight, its ability to sustain great G forces during flight, and its remarkable ability to see 360 degrees to aid in its flight simultaneously and in a relatively short period of time, or the dragonfly could not have appeared at all. Evolutionists claim that the dragonfly was one of the first insects to appear on the evolutionary timetable, giving the dragonfly even less time to “evolve.” The probability of the dragonfly evolving all of these capabilities at the same time and in the limited time period evolutionists give it, is astronomically low, if not impossible.

The genius design that is evident within the dragonfly tells the true tale. The dragonfly did not evolve; it was created, by a Power that knows a lot more about air travel than we do. We are just beginning to unravel the mysteries of the abilities of birds and bugs to sustain incredible feats of flight. Is it even possible that a mindless random system produced such incredible, and until recently, inexplicable capabilities? No. Just as there is a designer of fighter jets and flight suits, so also is there a designer of the dragonfly, the Almighty God of the universe.