Scientists have always wondered whether monarch butterflies have built in compasses to help them in their fantastic migrations. After wintering in Mexico, monarchs head to their northern breeding ranges in the eastern United States and Canada. Flying 25-60 miles a day and never having seen their breeding range, they find it every year. By the time they begin their migration south, they are the great-great-grandchildren of the individuals who left Mexico the previous spring. Yet, never having seen their wintering area, they find the same area in which their distant relatives wintered.
Researchers placed monarchs that were migrating south into a room shielded from the Earth's magnetic field. When the Earth's magnetic field was allowed to be normal in the room, released butterflies flew to the southwest, as they should. When researchers set the room to have no magnetic influence, monarchs flew in all directions. And when researchers generated a magnetic field in the room opposite that of the Earth's, the butterflies flew northeast. Researchers add that this demonstration of compasses within the monarchs still does not fully explain the wonders of monarch migration.
It takes more faith to believe that monarchs and their migration habits evolved than to believe that these are the work of a wise and intelligent God Who also gave the Earth a magnetic field.
RESOURCES NEEDED BY MONARCHS
All life forms need resources, and the four most important resources needed by monarchs in their annual cycle are food for the larvae (milkweeds) during the breeding phase, nectar from flowers for the adults in both the reproductive and migratory phases, and shelter and water while overwintering.
MILKWEEDS Female monarchs only lay eggs on milkweeds and a few other plants in the same plant family (Apocyanacae). While there are over 100 species of milkweeds in North America, many are rare or confined to remote habitats outside of the main monarch breeding areas. Still, monarchs utilize about 30 milkweed species as hosts for their larvae. Predominant among these is the common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca), a weedy species that readily invades disturbed sites. Estimates are that 90% of the monarchs that overwinter in Mexico each year have fed on this species as a larva.
PROTECTION FROM PREDATORS
Milkweeds contain a group of compounds known as cardiac glycosides or cardenolides. As the larvae feed on milkweeds, they acquire some of these compounds and sequester them into the cuticle of the developing adult late in the pupal stage. Cardiac glycosides are toxins that are effective against many vertebrates in that they induce vomiting. A bird needs to only eat a monarch once to get the message that they are not good food items. Most insects that incorporate toxins from noxious plants advertise their own food choice, and thus their inedibility, by being brightly colored; hence, the strongly contrasting black, orange, and white coloration of the monarch adult and the bright black, yellow, and white coloration of the monarch larvae. This form of advertising is known as aposematic (or warning) coloration.
HEIGHT OF THE MIGRATION
Although the monarch migration is visible at ground level, observations by pilots of gliders and commercial aircraft have reported monarchs from the boundary layer (+/-1200ft) to over 10,000 ft under certain conditions. What appear to be monarchs have also been seen on NEXRAD radar. From these observations it is clear that much of the monarch population can pass through an area without being seen by those of us at ground level.
An evolutionist would say the navagation skills and protection from predators just evolved by accident over millions of years.
So they fill your imagination with their theory and add the needed mysterious magic mix of millions of years.
If you imagination takes you to the possibility of an insect that can reason by trial and error and learn new skills, over millions of years, your evolution teacher is satisfied that you have come up with an explanation on your own that your teacher can't produce.
Atheist evolution wants you to convince yourself, by your own imagination. They want you to solve the millions of years explanation of evolution but you can't. You like the evolutioinst must believe that over time a butterfly created itself.
Yes evolution is a "religion" of believing in theories that can be explained only by your imagination via millions of years.
If you are an evolutionist you have "faith" in the mindless millions of years reason for creation of everything. You probably have convinced yourself
that creation was an accident.
Creation of the monarch butterfly was no accident. The butterfly has no ability to think about how to improve itself over time. It can't reason.
If you allow youself to think a monarch butterfly has the ability by trial and error to logically improve itself you have faith in its ability to create itself over the magic mix of millions of years.
The monarch butterfly was designed by God to navigate its migration and also reproduce in a milkweed plant to protect itself.
Researcher Bill Rains
Design Features for the Monarch Butterfly Life Cycle (ICR.org)
Magnetic Monarchs (CreationMoments.com)
(Romans 1:20) For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
Psalm 19:1-3 19:1 The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. 19:2 Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. 19:3 There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.
Rev 4:11 Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.
