We all know it’s a tough world out there in the wild for little animals. I was delighted to find out this fascinating discovery about California ground squirrels. It seems they have surprising defense against rattle snakes.

When an adult ground squirrel finds a rattlesnake, it begins to taunt the snake. The squirrel dashes into striking range, whips its tail about, bites the snake’s tail and kicks sand on it. While a rattlesnake can strike with lightening speed, the little ground squirrel is even faster and well able to dart out of the way. Even if it was bitten, the venom wouldn’t kill it since these squirrels have proteins in their blood that detoxify the poison. Frustrated snakes have been known to simply retreat when faced with this treatment.

Researchers have learned that the squirrels’ bag of tricks is even deeper. Rattlesnakes can see heat as infrared light. When the ground squirrel is taunting the rattlesnake, it sends additional blood to its tail, causing it to heat up, producing a very obvious infrared image for the snake, further confusing it. Interestingly enough, when the ground squirrel taunts a gopher snake, which cannot detect the infrared, it does not heat its tail. {Creation Moments}

Looks like an evolutionary conundrum. How could a small creature, develop these defenses before being eaten? Considering the speed with which a rattlesnake can strike, there would hardly be enough time to make “adjustments.” Time to develop poison- neutralizing proteins in the blood, and the ability to turn on and off the heat in the tail. Nope. The perpetual fall-back of evolutionary biologists – “time, time, and more time” just won’t play here. There just isn’t enough time.

Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh: is there anything too hard for Me?

Jeremiah 32:27