The Jaw-Dropping Design in Hawaii's State Fish | The Institute for Creation Research

The Jaw-Dropping Design in Hawaii's State Fish

Hawaiians call their state fish the humuhumunukunukuapua’a, or humuhumu for short, and snorkelers marvel at its wild paint job as it flits beneath basalt reefs. Scientifically named Rhinecanthus rectangulus, it is one of a variety of triggerfish that are named for a “trigger” used to lock the dorsal spine in an “up” position. Two aspects of the wonderful humuhumu reveal its Creator’s handiwork.

Oil pump jacks use an engineered four-bar linkage system that turns rotary motion into reciprocal motion

The first clearly created humuhumu aspect is the linkage mechanisms in its jaw. Man-made tools like crank rockers and oil derricks use linkage mechanisms to transmit motion and force. Within the humuhumu’s big, triangular head, flexible cartilage links bony levers and support bars. These mechanisms transfer power from jaw muscles to teeth, allowing triggerfish to chomp invertebrates like lobsters, spiny sea urchins, and snails.

Many animals use all sorts of clever all-or-nothing linkage mechanisms that showcase creation.1 “Linkage mechanisms enable animal joints to perform highly sophisticated and optimised motions” and to “achieve extreme levels of compactness in joints.”2 The humuhumu’s linkage mechanisms mean that it can use muscles far behind the jaw to open and close it, thus keeping the streamlined body shape needed for swimming.

Rhinecanthus rectangulus X-ray reveals skeletal frameworks that include critical linkages
Image credit: Sandra Raredon/Smithsonian Institution, public domain

The humuhumu’s bone-cartilage linkages required all-at-once assembly in the beginning. They refute notions of bit-by-bit evolution over eons. To understand exactly why, it helps to first consider manmade linkages. The humuhumu jaw structure has four-bar linkages. From an evolutionary perspective, some triggerfish ancestors would have evolved one-bar, then two-bar, and up to the multiple four-bar linkages the fish now have. How could this work?

Let’s say a new bar (i.e., a bone) somehow evolved. Linked anywhere onto an already-useful linkage mechanism, it would just get in the way. Evolution would have to disassemble the first linkage mechanism and then somehow reconnect the components into a new arrangement with the new bar. This would have left the imaginary triggerfish ancestors with no working jaws! Unable to eat, they would have died.

A diagram of major triggerfish skeletal linkages. Although small adjustments to various bone lengths have occurred as these fish diversified into species, the irreducible jaw structures that include four-bar linkage mechanisms remain in all named species of this created kind.
Image credit: Jim Zarbaugh, based on Figure 5 in reference 4

One evolutionary expert wrote, “Patterns of gain, loss, and functional modification of the key levers and linkages in these diverse fishes are almost entirely unexplored.”3 Evolutionary “patterns” remain unexplored because there were none. The Lord Jesus made the first triggerfish fully intact and functional.

A second humuhumu aspect that points to the Creator is the adaptability of its linkage mechanisms. The humuhumu belongs to the triggerfish family Balistidae. Some triggerfish have shorter snouts with taller heads. Each variation balances pros, like increased mechanical advantage when biting, with cons, like increased drag when swimming. Such tweaks to the head shape help various triggerfish to specialize on different foods they eat. For example, the titan triggerfish Balistoides viridescens jaw is strong enough to bite through rocky coral.

Balistoides viridescens’ jaws are strong enough to bite through coral, sea urchins, and mollusks. Divers fear this territorial fish’s bite.
Image credit: Leonard Low, CC BY 2.0

One in-depth study concluded that once the first basic triggerfish evolved, the “triggerfish lineage [has] since oscillated within these morphological maximums of skull morphospace.”4 Oscillations mean that over many generations triggerfish skulls have lengthened, shortened, and then lengthened again. Because the skull adjusts with all parts in concert and without going outside lethal “maximums,” we can be confident this process happens through internal programming.

Human engineers can only dream of designing oscillating architecture. It looks like the Lord Jesus, by whose will the Balistidae “exist and were created,”5 equipped this fish kind with the ability to tweak its own irreducible four-bar architecture across generations.6

References

  1. Muller, M. 1996. A Novel Classification of Planar Four-Bar Linkages and Its Application to the Mechanical Analysis of Animal Systems. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B. 351 (1340): 689–720.
  2. Burgess, S. 2021. A Review of Linkage Mechanisms in Animal Joints and Related Bioinspired Designs. Bioinspiration & Biomimetics. 16 (4).
  3. Westneat, M. W. 2004. Evolution of Levers and Linkages in the Feeding Mechanisms of Fishes. Integrative and Comparative Biology. 44 (5): 378–389.
  4. McCord, C. L. and M. W. Westneat. 2016. Evolutionary Patterns of Shape and Functional Diversification in the Skull and Jaw Musculature of Triggerfishes (Teleostei: Balistidae). Journal of Morphology. 277 (6): 737–752.
  5. Revelation 4:11.
  6. Like so many other creatures, triggerfish speciation likely required no mutations but instead the pre-built ability to stabilize a specific set of alleles. See Thomas, B. 2023. Trait Variation: Engineered Alleles, Yes! Random Mutations, No! Acts & Facts. 52 (11): 12–15.

* Dr. Thomas is a research scientist at the Institute for Creation Research and earned his Ph.D. in paleobiochemistry from the University of Liverpool.

Cite this article: Brian Thomas, Ph.D. 2024. The Jaw-Dropping Design in Hawaii's State Fish. Acts & Facts. 53 (6), 20-21.

The Latest
NEWS
The Origin of Eukaryotes
Eukaryotes are multicellular organisms that contain diverse differentiated cell types. Within almost every cell there are subcellular compartments called...

CREATION PODCAST
Water vs. Wind: The Controversial Coconino | The Creation Podcast:...
Welcome to the sixth episode in a series called “The Failures of Old Earth Creationism.” Many Christians attempt to fit old...

NEWS
Fossil Fish Finally Filmed
The bizarre lobe-finned coelacanth (Latimeria chalumnae) “that flourished some 350 million years ago”1 continues to be a thorn...

NEWS
The Mosasaur: A Giant Sea Dragon
Mosasaurs (order Squamata) were massive marine lizards that were common in the pre-Flood oceans. Therefore, it is not surprising that their fossils...

DAYS OF PRAISE DEVOTIONALS
Summer 2025
...

NEWS
Was Life Detected on a Distant Planet?
There was celebration, albeit briefly, for the discovery of potential life on a planet called K2-18b, which is 124 lightyears away from Earth. The...

NEWS
Ichthyosaur Graveyard Explained by the Flood
Ichthyosaurs are marine reptiles that occur globally in the same rock layers as dinosaurs. Specimens with babies support the idea that they gave live...

CREATION PODCAST
What Do We Do With Geology's Unconforming Features? | The Creation...
Welcome to the fifth episode in a series called “The Failures of Old Earth Creationism.” Many Christians attempt to fit old...

NEWS
Freshwater Fish Fossil in Australia
Yet another fish fossil has been discovered. This one was found in the Australian desert and was dated by evolutionists to be “15 million years...

NEWS
May 2025 ICR Wallpaper
"Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." (Romans...