MONARCH BUTTERFLIES

When we looked at the seahorse we saw God’s wisdom in its creation. However, we can also see God’s sovereignty in His design of the seahorse. For example: Why did God create a fish to swim upright and the male seahorse to bear the unborn. The answer: Because it pleased Him to do so. God created the seahorse according to His sovereign will, purposes and good pleasure. God’s sovereignty is seen in every aspect of creation. It is hard to select only one aspect of His creation to observe this attribute. Though this be the case, I selected the Monarch Butterfly because it not only brings attention to a Sovereign Creator, but also bewilders the evolutionary scientists by what it does.

The monarch butterfly goes through four stages of development before it becomes a butterfly. It begins with the female butterfly laying from 400 to 800 eggs. Three to six days after the butterfly lays an egg a caterpillar emerges. The caterpillar reaches full maturity in about 20 days, at which time it enters the chrysalis stage in about 60 seconds. Within eight more days the butterfly emerges. From the time the egg is laid to the time the butterfly emerges is about 31 days depending on the air temperature. No one knows why it takes four stages of life to produce the monarch butterfly. We can only say that it happens according to God’s sovereign will, purposes and good pleasure.

The monarch butterfly is the worlds only migrating insect. It can migrate as far as 3,000 miles from Nova Scotia, Canada to a preordained destination in Michoacan, Mexico. It navigates with remarkable precision to a destination that it has never been to before. This migration may take three or four generations of butterflies with each generation picking up where the last generation left off until the migration cycle is complete. The monarch will even migrate to the exact tree that its forefathers used. Then, it returns to its original starting point and the process starts again. Obviously, monarch butterflies are programmed by the all-knowing Creator to accomplish their amazing migration cycle.

Scientists have relocated monarchs to other locations within the Unites States and have found that they migrate according to the pattern of the resident monarch population to which they were transferred. This shows that they truly navigate and that there is intelligence designed into their navigation system. For example, the monarch’s brain (the size of a pin head) interprets 72,000 electrical pulses from the eyes to translate the picture the butterfly is seeing. It also computes the angle of polarized light that it sees to determine the sun’s orientation and it’s position on earth. Inside the monarch’s brain and chest are microscopic particles of magnetite, which can be used to locate the earth’s magnetic field. The monarch’s navigation system enables it to migrate to a new location 3,000 miles away to an accuracy of plus or minus 100 feet. The monarch butterfly is designed to migrate.

Besides the specially designed navigation system, the fully grown monarch butterfly has several other fascinating design features. For example, the caterpillar goes into the chrysalis stage completely blind, having thrown away its six simple eyes, which could only see black and white. The butterfly emerges with two new compound eyes that can see every color that a human can see plus ultraviolet light. Each eye has 6,000 lenses or simple eyes. The lens system allows the monarch to see in all directions simultaneously. The monarch’s eyes are the most elaborate and complex in all the animal kingdom. It can see objects up close as small as .04 inches and large objects, like humans, 20 feet away.

Also, the two antennas on the monarch’s head are very important. They are used to balance the butterfly as it flies. Removing one antenna causes the butterfly to fly in circles. On the tip of each female’s antenna is a red smell sensor capable of smelling the male monarch’s flowery perfume as far as two miles away.

Before the female monarch lays its eggs it tests the plant leaf to see if it is suitable. It taps the leaf with its two forelegs and uses six sharp microscopic needles on its forelegs to break the leafs surface causing juices to exude from the leaf. The two antenna are lowered at the same time to smell the leafs juices and the tastes sensors on the bottom of the other four legs are used to determine if the leaf is a suitable place to lay her eggs. These taste sensors are 2,000 times more sensitive to the taste of sugar than our human taste buds. If the eggs are laid on the wrong type of leaf there would not be another generation of monarch. This design feature had to be right the first time. There was no time for an evolutionary process.

The monarch butterfly has four wings. On these four wings are about one million scales. Each of these scales are filed with air, giving them a low density, which enables the butterfly to fly more easily. The monarch cruises at about 10 miles per hour, but can fly as fast as 30 miles per hour in still air. Though the monarch will usually fly close to the ground they have been seen at altitudes as high as 12,000 feet.

This beautiful and extremely complex butterfly was created from a caterpillar in just eight days. We not only see God’s sovereignty at work, but also His wisdom and His power at work creating the monarch butterfly.

How does the monarch know where it’s migration site is located, especially when it has never been there before? How were the different migration sites originally located between the different families of monarch butterflies around the world? How do they know the route to take? How do they pass on the information from one generation to the next? How do they know when to migrate? Why does the monarch go through four stages of development to become a butterfly? The more one studies this amazing insect the more one must conclude: It was created by a Sovereign God according to His will, purpose and good pleasure. It brings Him glory as the one and only Creator of all things. It also gives us the hope and the confidence that we too will be changed just as our Sovereign God has planned it. As the apostle Paul stated in 1 Corinthians 15:51-54, 57-58: “Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, ‘Death is swallowed up in victory.’ ...thanks to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.” To the one and only Sovereign God who rules over all be glory, honor and praise forever!