Page 100 - Devotion Among Animals Revealing the Work of God

DEVOTION AMONG ANIMALS

Still, the ecological penalties for parental care can be so severe
for insects that some entomologists wonder why it has persisted
at all. The far easier strategy, followed by most insects, is simply
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to produce an abundance of eggs.
Even though Tallamy believes in evolution, he is questioning
one of the theory's dead ends. According to the theory of evolution,
behavior that endangers a species' own lives should have been
quickly phased out. But obviously, this did not happen! Many in-
sects, like most other creatures in nature, never hesitate to risk their
lives for their offspring and often—as in the case of wasps, bees, and
ants— for one another.
One of the tiny creatures that does so is the lace bug that lives
on horse-nettle plants. The female lace bug protects her eggs and
later, her nymphs to the bitter end. One of the nymphs' worst ene-
mies is the damsel bug—a beetle that, given the opportunity, will eat
all the larvae with its sharp beak. But the female lace bug has no
weapons to protect her young, and the
only thing she can do is sit on the back of
the enemy and beat her wings, trying to
force it away.
Meanwhile, the nymphs use the
leaf's central vein like a speedway, escape
via the stem and hide in some fresh un-
curling new leaves. If the mother can

The lace bug, seen
here protecting its
nymphs from at-
tacks by other in-
sects.

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