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Bombardier Beetle
 
Written by Lanny Johnson
 
Here we have a picture of a frog and a bug. Now what do we do everyday that the frog has to do? No, we do not have to hop. We have to eat. If we do not eat, what will happen to us? That’s right, we will die. What happens to a frog if he does not eat? He will also die (or croak).
What do frogs eat? They eat bugs! Look at this. This is going to be so easy for the frog. He does not have to jump in a car and drive to the nearest McDonald’s. Today the meal is coming right to him!
What does a frog have in his mouth? A tongue. A long sticky tongue. So he reaches out and......Zap!
That’s lunch! Right? Well, not quite. The creature I really wanted to talk to you about is not the frog, but the bug. Because......
Look what happens to the frog. He is sticking his tongue out, saying, “Blah” and “Yeech!” The bug is walking off the stage! So what happened? The frog ran into my little friend here, the bombardier beetle.
Here is what the beetle looks like. At his head you find his eyes and antennae. At the other end the beetle has two cannons that he shoots gases out of. He is very good with his cannons. He can shoot between his legs, over his back, and around his sides. He can shoot 360 degrees all around him, and he never misses!
Now when I say he is shooting gases, I don’t mean that he is just going “Phttttt.” If you were to see this happen you would hear a loud “pop”. In fact, you might hear a lot of “pops” because he can set them off like a machine gun. Pow, Pow, Pow....... The beetle is making an explosion come out of his backside. ’ He is making a bomb! That is why he is named the bombardier beetle.
We are talking about a beetle that is only about half an inch long. So how does he make a bomb? To find out, we must look inside Boomer, a bombardier beetle.
When we look inside Boomer we find he has some very special equipment. Boomer has special glands that produce special chemicals. If threatened, these chemicals are squirted into a mixing chamber where the chemicals are thoroughly mixed. When danger is eminent, Boomer opens up some sphincter muscles between the mixing chamber and an explosion sac. Once the chemicals are in the explosion chamber (which can withstand high pressures) a chemical called a catalyst is added. This catalyst reacts with the other chemicals, producing a rapid chemical reaction that produces intense heat (212 degrees Fahrenheit), steam, and an explosion that shoots out the cannons into the face of the enemy! Take a look at all the special equipment of the bombardier beetle. Does this look like something that happened by chance and accident? It looks like the bombardier beetle was created by special design!

Evolution would teach that at one time, the bombardier beetle did not have all that special equipment; that he evolved it over millions of years. Pretend along with me....
Mr. Beetle was sick and tired that every time he went for a walk, somebody was trying to eat him. So he got this bright idea. He would make himself a defense mechanism; something to protect himself. He went to the laboratory and began to play with chemicals. After many trials and errors, he finally found the right two chemicals by chance and accident. And what do you think happened? That’s right....



Ka-Pow!

We are left with one blown up beetle. Do you see a problem with this evolutionary story? How can the beetle tell his children, “Now kids, don’t play with chemicals without parental supervision.”? He cannot, because he’s dead! Can he tell his friends, “Hey, I found the right two chemicals, but boy, you better have a mixing chamber to put them in, and some special sphincter muscles to keep the explosion from blowing the wrong way. Oh yeah, by the way, you also better have an explosion sac that can withstand high pressures, a special catalyst, and special cannons to direct the bomb.”Can he tell his friends that? No, because he is dead!
When you look at the bombardier beetle you see a bug that never could have happened by chance and accident, because you can’t make mistakes when you are playing with bombs. When you look at the bombardier beetle I see a creature that only could have been created by design. That design had to work the very first time, and every time thereafter, or we would not even see a bombardier beetle around today. So when I look at the bombardier beetle, I see the hand of God!