The photo is of a baby common snapping turtle I crossed paths with one fall day in southern Illinois. A couple of days ago I was watching part of a children's Saturday morning nature show with my kids as a well-known host wrestled a huge alligator snapping turtle (a different species than the one pictured here) onto shore and proceeded to discuss its early evolutionary success due, in part at least, to the fleshy appendage on its tongue which it used as a lure to catch unsuspecting fish.
Now this is a children's show and so one does not expect a PhD dissertation on how the fleshy appendage might have evolved, and I do not fault the show for not going into more detail on that. What strikes me, however, as something I'd want to know more about is how an evolutionist explains the behavioural dimension to this development. It does not seem that far-fetched to think that a fleshy appendange might genetically show up on the tongue of a snapping turtle. BUT as I understand it, in order for that to be a favorable mutation likely to be passed on to succeeding generations, it has to be useful. However, the fleshy appendage itself is not useful until somewhere along the line the turtle with this appendage discovers that it can be used to attract fish. How does this happen? And assuming that it happens, how does this newly discovered knowledge get passed along to any of the offspring fortunate enough to inherit the fleshy appendage, so that the appendage helps provide a competitive edge to that generation as well and so assure its spread through the race? They are not likely to learn the behaviour by watching an adult since turtles in general do not care for their offspring but lay the eggs and leave them to hatch and fend for themselves (like the little guy in the picture headed for the water).
As I have opportunity to learn more about the evolutionary perspective I will keep an interested eye open for explanations of how necessary behavioural modifications are explained. Not suprisingly, however, I find it much more reasonable to believe that the fleshy appendage on the tongue of the alligator snapping turtle is not the product of random chance but is there by design, and that the One who designed it also packaged the necessary behaviours to use it successfully as instinct to be passed unfailingly from generation to generation.
