Beavers Chomping Down Evolution’s Tree
Beavers have always been fascinating to watch. They are awkward on land and unlike other rodents are not fast at all. They are probably the only rodent that a human can out run. But put them in the water and they are as graceful swimmers as a swan.
No one can deny that they have some of the best engineering skills in the animal kingdom. They can take a pile of what looks like firewood and kindling and turn it into a well-built dam on a stream and an island home for their family. Biologists and engineers have long studied the construction skills of beavers and are constantly amazed at how they not only build a dam, but how they maintain and repair it as well.
The front teeth on a beaver are also quite distinctive. They are shaped like wood chisels with a very sharp beveled edge. Beavers use these built in chisels to cut down trees of varying sizes and to trim off branches and cut them down to just the right size for whatever purpose the beaver has in mind. Beaver’s front teeth are constantly growing which is a good thing as all that wood cutting would soon wear them down to nothing.
And it’s those distinct front teeth that have made recent news in the world of fossils. Some Bureau of Land Management employees were working in the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument in Oregon discovered some fossilized beaver teeth. This is a protected area that has produced a number of different fossils in the past.
According to the National Park Service, the teeth are believed to be around 7 million years old and represent the oldest beaver fossils found in North America. Not only do they believe this is the oldest beaver fossil from this continent but they were surprised to see that the teeth are:
Are almost identical to living beaver teeth, showing that the animal has changed very little in the last seven million years. This indicates that their appearance and role in the environment would have been the same in the past.
The oldest beaver fossils are supposed to be around 10-12 million years old and were found in Germany. Interestingly, no fossils have ever been found of an intermediate beaver; a creature that was in the process of evolving into a beaver but wasn’t a beaver yet. One would expect to find some kind of intermediate, but like virtually all other animals, there isn’t one. The oldest beaver fossils (which we know can’t be any older than 4,400 years – the time of the Genesis Flood) show up abruptly in the fossil record as true beavers.
Once again when we examine the evidence from science, we see the sudden appearance of an animal, in this case a beaver, as if it were wondrously created to begin with. And when we do what the Bereans did and search the Scriptures to see what is true and what is not true, we quickly learn that God created all land animals on Day 6 of Creation, the same day He created man.
References
Beavers Have Experienced Little Change Over 7 Million Years, RedOrbit.com, Sept. 19, 2011.
North America‘s Earliest Beaver Discovered, National Park Service, Sept. 13, 2011.
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5 Responses to Beavers Chomping Down Evolution’s Tree
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As all who know anything about the fossilization process know, and some inexplicably neglect to mention, the conditions required for a given animal to fossilize AND for the fossil to survive the various erosional processes which have occurred over geologic time are far from common. We’re lucky to find any fossils at all.
Be that as it may, the predecessor species from which the two currently living beaver species evolved had already split into the two divergent branches found in North America and Eurasia long before the species we call “Castor canadensis” migrated over the Bering land bridge. There are no intermediate species in North America because the species has remained mostly unchanged since that migration. It didn’t “suddenly appear” as creationists love to mischaracterize. It migrated here, already mostly evolved into its current state.
From: Marvel of God’s Creation.
The beaver is another uniquely designed creation. The following is copied verbatim from Creation Ex Nihilo Vol. 15 No. 2, March-May 1993, pages 38-41. Hopefully you will see the value of subscribing to this creationist magazine as you read the words of author and scientist, Denis Dreves:
“Beavers: Aquatic Architects”
“The dam building ability of beavers is fairly well known, but beavers possess other amazing design features which God has included in their anatomy. Beavers are air-breathing mammals which spend a great deal of time in water. For this reason they need special equipment.
First, the beaver has special valves in its ears and nose. When the beaver dives below the water these valves automatically close so that no water can enter. When the animal resurfaces, the valves reopen and it breathes again.
Perhaps their most amazing piece of equipment is their eyelids. If you have done any diving or snorkeling you will know that water and materials in it can irritate your eyes and wash out natural lubricants. Not only that, but your eyes do not see well under water. That is why snorkelers wear goggles.
Were we original to think up this idea of goggles?
Not really. God designed beavers with “built-in” goggles. Their eyelids are transparent, so they can close their eyes underwater and still see extremely well. Their transparent eyelids give protection to their eyes from waterborne irritants.
During winter, beavers must feed on the bark of trees they have cut and stored in the autumn, using their specially designed, self-sharpening front incisors (perhaps one of the beaver’s better known pieces of equipment).
The beavers collect the young trees [usually two to five centimeters (one to two inches) in diameter] for food, cut them to suitable lengths and then transport them, by holding them in their teeth, to their underwater cache, forcing the branches into the mud at the bottom of the pond.
Evolution never was able to bring forth such an animal so perfectly adapted for its environment, why is it that the so-called claim of 7 million years age beaver fossils show no alteration or change in this beaver?
Poor atheist people believing this hypothesis of evolution which is no theory at all for nothing has been proving its claim, get real guys and get yourself a Bible, maybe by reading this you’ll get wiser.
Aha, the Christian creation myth, eh? I prefer the Maori creation myth, myself. But hey, here’s a nice list. You can decide which, including the Christian one, sounds most likely.
http://www.magictails.com/creationlinks.html
On second thought. I think I’ll stick with the Big Bang, Abiogenesis and Evolution. At least with them, there’s evidence that they’re true. Not just wishful thinking.
Aha, the Christian creation myth, eh? I prefer the Maori creation myth, myself. But hey, here’s a nice list. You can decide which, including the Christian one, sounds most likely.
http://www.magictails.com/creationlinks.html
On second thought. I think I’ll stick with the Big Bang, Abiogenesis and Evolution. At least with them, there’s evidence that they’re true. Not just wishful thinking.
Sorry about the double post. Please delete one, if possible.