Page 154 - The Miracle of Migration in Animals
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THE MIRACLE OF MIGRATION IN ANIMALS
God has eternal knowledge. From the moment of their
creation, creatures are endowed with characteristics to let
them cope with whatever they may encounter in life. Their
bodies are perfectly structured down to the last detail, in har-
mony with the tasks they will carry out and the environments
they will live in. Like all systems in the universe, migration is
very complex but at the same time, regular and reasoned in its
organization. In the Qur’an, God reveals the following on the
futility of those who look for faults in His creation:
He Who created the seven heavens in layers. You will
not find any flaw in the creation of the All-Merciful.
Look again—do you see any gaps? Then look again
and again. Your sight will return to you dazzled and
exhausted! (Qur’an, 67:3-4)
Round Trip of Whales
The whale is the largest living creature of our time. The
very largest is the blue whale, growing as long as 35 meters
(114 feet) and weighing as much as 130 tons. Even the smallest
of the whales known as the pygmy right whale grows to 6 me-
ters (19 feet) and weighs 5 tons. These gigantic bodied crea-
tures can be classified into two groups; baleen whales, that
have an apparatus in their oral cavity, made of a substance
similar to hair and nails, hooves and horns, for filtering the
small fish, crustaceans and plankton they feed on; and toothed
whales that feed on various kinds of fish and warm-blooded
animals like seabirds and sea mammals.
Migration for whales is an annual round trip from tropi-
cal to polar seas. The baleen whales are the most remarkable.
These whales breed in warm waters of the tropics or subtrop-
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