Creation Moments

When you are a small animal whose diet could injure or even kill you, eating can be positively dangerous. That danger increases if you belong to a family of animals that normally takes minutes or even hours to swallow a victim.

An adult Texas thread snake is only about six or eight inches long, a little thicker than a strand of spaghetti and has a jaw unlike any other creature. It eats ants - ants that could seriously injure or kill it. As you may know, snakes generally take several minutes or even hours to swallow their food as they slowly stretch their jaws around their prey. But this method wouldn't work for the thread snake. By the time it was swallowed, the snake’s lunch would have killed the snake. So, the thread snake has a lower jaw, filled with teeth, and a hinge in the middle. As the lower jaws hinge in and out - several times a second, like a swinging door - ants disappear into the snake in the blink of an eye. Thus, they are able to down dozens of ants a minute!

The Texas thread snake is more than a witness to God's wise design. Its unique jaw structure is essential to its survival. If evolution is true, the Texas thread snake would have become extinct during the millions of years it waited for evolution to find a solution to its problem. In addition, since there is no other vertebrate with a jaw like the Texas thread snake, from what could it have evolved? Unlike the serpent in the Garden of Eden, the thread snake truly bears witness to God's greatness.

Psalm 145:15

“The eyes of all wait upon thee; and thou givest them their meat in due season.”

Prayer: I thank You, dear Father that You have provided for the needs of all Your creatures in a way that witnesses to You. Amen.

Ref: Science News, "Weird jaws let tiny snake gulp fast." Image: Rena dulcis on hand Victor Engel, CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.