Daily Devotional – October 10

Biology

There are many different kinds of ants. Some of the most amazing ants are the weaver ants; they live in trees and construct their nests by “weaving” together leaves using larval silk. The ant colony can have hundreds of these soccer-ball-sized nests spanning many tropical trees in Africa, Asia, or Australia. Although they are called weaver ants, they do not actually weave the living leaves, instead they glue them together. Where do they get the glue? From the larvae, the young ones. (An ant goes through 4 stages: egg, larva, pupa, and adult).

When the worker ants are building their nest, they grab one leaf and hold the edge of another leaf. During this time, another worker ant brings in a larva which is about to enter into the pupa stage of metamorphosis. Instead of the larva spinning a cocoon, the worker ant squeezes the larva just as we might squeeze a tube of toothpaste, causing sticky silk to come out. The larva is then passed from ant to ant, gluing the leaves together, and thus constructing a secure nest. Evolutionary theory says that slowly over millions of years, the weaver ants evolved this method of sticking leaves together. Question - didn’t ant nests need to be secure right from the beginning? If it did not work the first time, or millionth time, why build a nest in a tree? Weaver ants, just like all ants, work by instinct; they just know how to build a nest. When we see an instinct, we know there must be an instinct maker, and that is God.

There be four things which are little upon the earth, but they are exceeding wise: The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer;

~ Proverbs 30:24-25

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

References for this devotional.