Today's topic would perhaps be a very unexpected one. During the last two weeks the topics were dealing with great intellectual and spiritual giants who strode like a colossus during their times - - - the ancient sage Patanjali, and the eigth century Paramahamsa Parivraajaka, the great Adi Sankara. Well, today's topic is going to be 'Insects' ! What a fall ! From the mighty humans down to tiny insignificant insects ! What if ? They too are part of creation. They also have life, and its problems. They too are born and die as humans do. In any case, it is the same Divinity that manifests thru all, big or small. Now, on to the topic of 'Marvels of Insects' :
The study of insects is a very interesting subject. An insect has no bones. It wears its skeleton externally. Its heart is on top near its back. An entomologist in an experiment gradually piled tiny weights on a scarlet beetle, and was able to make it move about, under a load of 850 times its own weight without buckling ! An average man, straining, can lift a little more than two-third his weight ! A sample of 'marvels of insects'!
An insect has no lungs, nor does it breathe by mouth or nostrils. Along its sides are tiny perforations in symmetrical rows. Each of these is an air duct. An insect is continuously ventilated by a flow of air which it controls by opening and closing its air ducts. Resting, it needs relatively little oxygen. But in flight it must breathe prodigiously. It must be able to suddenly call upon as much as fifty times the normal amount of oxygen, provided by beating its wings! A dragon-fly, carrying its long body on its wings thinner than fine paper, can hit forty mph. A mosquito gorged on blood, performs the extraordinary aerodynamic feat of flying off carrying a load twice its own weight ! To do so, it beats its wings more than 300 times a second! --- The high thin whine of the tiny midge -- so small that it is almost invisible --is caused by its wings beating more than a thousand times a second.... The little flea that hops aboard the dog, can make a leap of hundred times its own height!
Insects may look fragile, but their strength is deceptively remarkable. Dr.F.E. Lutz of American Museum of Natural History, sealed bees and butterflies in a tube, then pumped out air to make a vacuum. Even the insect's body moisture was sucked out. But they survived unharmed, even when the tube was broken and normal pressure suddenly restored. Even the toughest elephant would have died instantly. .... Insects have strange and lavish sensory gifts. Crickets have ears on their knees. Cicadas have ears in their abdomens. A water-beetle hears with its chest. Acute human hearing seldom ranges above 20,000 vibrations a second. But bush- crickets can hear 45,000. Many insects hear sounds outside human range..... Insects see by small eyes called ocelli on top of their heads, by great compound eyes at the sides, and by a kind of all-over 'invisible eye' or light sense. They literally see thru their skin! The world thus revealed is a landscape of finely patterned mosaic, each tiny piece of it caught by one facet of the eye. Fitted together, the pieces make a picture something like a stain-glassed window. The eye of a dragon-fly has more than 25,000 such facets ! ..... Regarding taste and smell, insects have remarkable sensitivity. Butterflies and bees can taste not only with their mouths, but with their feet! The extreme limit at which human taste can detect sweetness, is in a solution of one part of sugar in about 200 parts of water. Some moths and butterflies can detect presence of sugar, when it is one part in 300,000 ! As with taste, so with scent. Some male moths are able to catch the scent of a female nine miles downwind !
And on and on and on - - - - countless marvels can be doled out.
One cannot but wonder at the mysteries of creation, and how the tiniest creatures have been endowed with such vastly superior sensory powers and skills, compared to humans, who gloat so much over their powers and superiority. Knowledge of the mysteries of creation, and the incredible capabilities of even micro-life like insects, would not only induce admiration and concern for Nature and environment, but also lead to a philosophical and spiritual contemplation, and lift one to a higher level of consciousness!
No comments:
Post a Comment