Daily Devotional – April 20

Botany

Have you considered the sawfly larva’s ingenious defense system? This North American and European pest lives in conifers. Conifers aren’t bothered by too many insect pests. That’s because the oils that give pine trees that nice pine scent are poisonous to insects – including the sawfly. Yet, the sawfly larva eats these poisonous pine needles without dying. How does it survive?

As a sawfly larva munches on the poisonous pine needles, he does not digest them immediately. The sawfly larva separates the poisonous oils in the pine needles from the nutritious pulp. These poisonous oils are then stored in two special sacs in his mouth which are lined with a “poison-proof” material. These poisonous oils can then be used as the larva’s defense mechanism. When a bird or spider attacks, the foul-smelling oils are discharged - frightening the enemy away.

How could this complicated defense/storage system have developed gradually over time? How did the sawfly know to build two sacs and line them with a poison-proof coating so that he would not be killed by the poisons? How did the sawfly know this foul-smelling poisonous oil would repel birds and spiders? The sawfly did not know; God knew. God protects even the smallest of His creatures.

Deliver me from mine enemies….

~ Psalm 59:1

Source: "Pearls in Paradise" by authors Bruce Malone and Jule Von Vett

References for this devotional.