What If We Were Bugs?

Here's an interesting what-if scenario for ya.

If you take a close look throughout the animal kingdom, taking time to look at mammals, birds, amphibians, fish, and reptiles, you'll find that all of them have a softer skin surrounding their body, and a hard skeleton on the inside.

Humans have this hard skeletal system too.

Other than serving as a base of support for us, bones also protect vital organs (think of the rib cage), and provide an attachment point for muscles. Sooo...they're pretty important.

Now look at bugs. Unlike virtually every other moving, breathing thing on this planet (minus jellyfish, worms, oysters, and a few other things), bugs have their skeleton on the outside of their body. It's called an exoskeleton.

Now why would God create just about every moving, breathing creature on earth with the same basic fundamental skeletal system with the exception of bugs? Why are bugs really the only creatures on earth with exoskeletons?

My theory is this: bugs are little. Imagine being in a world surrounded by giants everywhere. Big, mean giants that stomp, flick, swat, and hit you. If you were in a world like this, wouldn't it be nice to have some type of armor surrounding your body to protect you? Without it, if all of your soft tissues were on the outside of your body, like ours, imagine the damage that being flicked would cause to you. You'd be obliterated!

Yet how many times have you flicked an ant off of your picnic basket, only to watch it quickly skitter away from you once it lands on the other side of the blanket?

That little exoskeleton protects those little bugs. And without it, there'd be no little bugs, and as a result, there'd be no pollination of plants, no little bugs to eat decomposing material, no food for thousands of animals, and consequentially, no us.

So, that little exoskeleton plays a purpose. God thought of that, and I think that's pretty cool.