An interesting artical from Creation Magazine - Vol.29 No. 3 June-Aug 2007
In a 1999 issue of Nature, two scientists (James Truman & Lyn Riddiford) presented their hypothesis of how complete insect metamorphosis evolved. In the article the authors tried to explain the evolution of four-stage metamorphosis from three-stage metamorphosis by proposing that the latter actually contains four stages. They called this arbitrarily-defined fourth stage the 'pronymph', and described it to be a period which always precedes the first moult, and which varies in duration among different species, sometimes ending as soon as the insect hatches out of its egg. This 'pronymph', they argued, evolved into our modern larva.
In plainer terms, some ancient insect hatched out of its egg too soon and began groping around for food. It continued evolving until it could spend many weeks in this premature, caterpillar-like form, before finally metamorphosing into the long-belated nymph stage - which according to the authors had shortened and evolved into our modern pupa.
Our fatal problem with this idea is that the underdeveloped 'pronymph', as described in Nature, doesn't eat! It would need a fully formed digestive tract and the capability to bite, chew and swallow if it were to survive and grow into an adult. Truman and Riddiford argued that the 'pronymph' overcame these difficulties and gradually evolved until it could eat, move, and presumably defend itself. Defence is very important in a world of 'survival of the fittest', and it boggles the mind how the first premature 'pronymph' was safer and better favoured by evolution than a normal, fully developed nymph!
A better explanation is that four-stage metamorphosis was created independently and completely functional.
Nature provides all the ingredients in the Mannatech product PhytoMatrix containing vitamins and phytochemicals.
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