In the deserts of southern United States, the creamy blossoms of the yucca plant are a beautiful sight when they are in bloom. However, this plant would soon become extinct if it were not for the work of a little moth. The moth itself also would not survive if it did not have the yucca plant.
No bees, ants or other insects help fertilize the yucca flower. This is entirely the work of the pronuba moth. The moth seems to know what it has to do. The yucca blossom opens in the evening and is open most of the night. While still daylight the female moth flies to a half-open yucca blossom. When the blossom opens fully at night, she collects a good supply of pollen. Then she forms the pollen into a ball about the size of her head. She tucks it under her chin and goes to another blossom. As she walks up the pistil (the female part of the flower) she deposits several eggs into its hollow center. Then she continues her climb to the top where she deposits the ball of pollen on the top part of the pistil, rubbing it in by pressing her head against it again and again. This pollinates the yucca flower.
After some weeks the flower turns into a pod with a hard shell filled with seeds, with the moth’s eggs still inside. The eggs hatch out as tiny caterpillars who use the seeds as their only source of food. Later they chew through the pod, drop to the ground and spin themselves into cocoons. Adult moths eventually come out of the cocoons at the same time that new flowers are forming on the yucca. And the cycle begins again.
Any other moth would just find a place to lay her eggs and then be on her way. Why does the pronuba moth collect pollen from one flower, then change to another flower before laying her eggs and, finally, depositing the ball of pollen so necessary to the life cycle of the yucca? Certainly, all this is not by chance. A Supreme Power has told the little moth what to do.
Some may say this is only instinct and the little moth obeys those instincts, but it is the Lord God who gave the pronuba moth the necessary instincts when He created the first one. How serious to realize that man has been given an intelligence much higher than instinct, but he is walking in his own way away from God. The Bible says of man, “When they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools” (Romans 1:21-2221Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. 22Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, (Romans 1:21‑22)).
The Spirit of God pleads with everyone to “[cast] down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and [bring] into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:55Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; (2 Corinthians 10:5)). Are you submitting to God, the Creator of everything?
MARCH 9, 1997
ML-03/09/1997