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Energy is essential to life on earth.
Living things must acquire energy
and manage it properly.
This enables creatures
to live in extreme climates,
move with speed,
and travel vast distances.
The wandering albatross
flies thousands of kilometers to find food,
but it can stay up in the air
for days at a time,
rarely flapping its wings.
How?
It rides the wind like a rollercoaster,
diving toward the water,
turning,
rising in repeated arcs.
This efficient use of the wind’s energy
is known as dynamic soaring.
The albatross has the longest wingspan
of any bird,
about 3.5 meters, or over 11 feet.
It has a special tendon for each shoulder,
enabling it
to lock its wings in place at will,
like an airplane’s fixed wings.
Because of this,
it doesn’t tire out
from keeping those long wings extended
and can continue that pattern
virtually without end.
Other birds carefully conserve energy
to stay warm in cold conditions.
They stand and walk on ice
for extended periods of time
without freezing.
How?
As their blood circulates,
energy is transferred through a process
known as countercurrent heat exchange.
If a warm fluid runs in the same direction
alongside a cool fluid,
at best, 50 percent of the heat
is transmitted.
But if the fluids run in opposite directions,
nearly all of the heat is transmitted.
The veins and arteries
in the legs of seagulls, geese, and penguins
act this way.
This highly efficient system
maintains the body’s core temperature
while leaving
just enough heat in the bird’s feet
to keep them from freezing.
But what about creatures
facing the opposite extreme?
What if instead of conserving energy
they need to lose some?
Silver ants of the Sahara Desert
live in one of the hottest places on earth.
They forage for food
when temperatures on the desert floor
are as high as 70 degrees Celsius,
or 158 degrees Fahrenheit.
To survive,
they reflect and dissipate energy.
The secret is its hair.
While some animals rely on hair to keep warm,
the silver ant uses its hair to stay cool.
How?
The ant’s hairs are triangular-shaped tubes.
Like carefully crafted prisms,
they reflect
the hottest wavelengths of sunlight
and dissipate heat.
Some researchers think it may tolerate heat
better than any other animal on the planet.
In the natural world,
animals acquire,
conserve,
and manage energy
in remarkably efficient ways.
What do you think?
Did the ability of animals
to manage energy evolve?
Or was it designed?

Was It Designed? Nature’s Energy Management