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builds a small urn from mortar
where she places severa! paralyzed
caterpillars . Traditional waspish
wisdom would then call for her to
deposit her egg in close proximity
to the caterpillars so that her newly
hatched larva would have no
trouble finding its next meal. But in
thi.s case the caterpillars are only
partially paralyzed and their con–
stan! twitchings and thrashings
would pose a serious threat to the
larva. So mama wasp, having plenty
of insight into these matters, al–
taches her egg to the end of a
silken thread that dangles from the
cei ling of her little mud enclosure.
But in solving one problem, the
wasp creates another. Suspended
in midair above the caterpillars, the
larva has no way to safely get to its
food supply. Almost, that is.
Again the potter wasp shows re–
markable foresight. When her tiny
larval offspring hatches, the egg
case doesn't break open like a nor–
mal egg, but it unwinds to form a
miniature spiral staircase leading
down to the caterpillars.
At first the small wasp larva can
only sally down its silken steps and
take a few tentative bites out of its
wriggling hosts. But after a few
days it has grown to the point
where it can abandon the safety of
its perch , dispatch its victim, and
spend the rest of its larval days
blissfully munching on the remains
of the carcasses.
According to conventional evolu–
tionary litany, the potter wasp should
probably have solved the problem
simply by tul/y paralyzing the cater–
pi llars. After all,
other
wasps do this.
Why not the potter?Why go to all this
trouble for a single wasp egg? And
how does a wasp somehow come up
with unwinding eggshells that turn
into spiral staircases-along with an
"understanding" of how to suspend
~
them?
o:
Certain l y the potter wasp's
j
strange behavior has to leave evo-
lutionary theory hanging in midair
j
along with its offspring. And maybe
1
it's trying to tell us something about
~
a Creator who obviously has a lot of
ID
" architectural expertise along with a
~
pretty ingenious imagination.
o
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