I was looking at a fruit fly (actually probably more likely a fungus gnat or sciarid fly) a couple of days ago. It was about 2mm long walking up the side of my tea mug.
Aside from the ability of flies to walk up vertical, shiny surfaces (and indeed walk upside down on the ceiling) I marvelled at how Nature can make something so tiny which can function at all.
Look at the legs. They’re as fine as silk. How do you pack into such a tiny diameter an exoskeleton, muscles, nerve fibres and some rudimentary circulation? It defies belief.
And the antennae are much the same. And the wings.
What’s more … How on earth does anyone dissect such a leg or wing to understand the structure? I just cannot get my head round that. Just how do you do such delicate work?
It does make one see how people can believe in intelligent design — for surely engineering something this intricate just isn’t possible. And yet that is exactly the marvel Nature has achieved via evolution.
Incredible!