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The Animals

In order to answer that question we first of all need to know how many animals there are. We could count them all -- elephants, camels, rats, mice, giraffes, etc.

But it is easier simply to accept Ernst Mayr's figures, since he is an outstanding evolutionary taxonomist and an expert in the classification of animals. He tells us there are over a million species of animals living on the earth today. Can we put a million different animals inside the ark? Quite honestly the answer is no. But before we say the Bible does not work and laugh at it as many people do, let us look at Genesis 7 again. We are told in the 21st verse:

"And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man: All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died. And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark. And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days." (Genesis 7:21-24)

If you check that list very carefully you find certain animals were destroyed -- fowl, cattle, beasts, and every creeping thing -- all of the insects, and even man. It is emphasized again for us that all the dry land animals died. We are told that every living substance that was upon the face of the ground was destroyed. If you read carefully you will find that nowhere in the account are fish mentioned. It was not necessary for Noah to find a male and female goldfish, he did not have to gather killer whales; he did not have to worry whether his piranhas were bothering anything else inside the ark. Since the judgment was to be a water cataclysm it seems logical that the fish should stay and survive in the water. Though many were destroyed because of the violence of water action (we find trapped fish in the fossil record), still in all, it is logical that the creatures that lived in the sea, fish, echinoderms, brachiopods, whose natural habitat was water, survived the flood simply by staying in the water.

Therefore we can eliminate their number from the million species of animals Mayr tells about. Eliminating those animals that live in the sea, except for amphibious animals which, though they might have survived in the water will be included in the ark, we find that instead of a million species of animals there would be only 17,500. That is a little different.

We still have a slight problem with the figure of 17,500. If you have studied several years of biology and a couple of years of physiology you may have noticed this one fact: to preserve life upon the earth, a male and a female are required, preferably these should be of the same species. So we need to take 17,500 males and 17,500 matching females of each species, a total of 35,000 animals inside the ark. The average size of these animals is about the size of a sheep. You say, wait a minute; I have gone to the zoo and seen large animals such as elephants, giraffes, rhinoceroses, hippos, all these big animals which are larger than sheep. True, but fortunately there are also rats, mice, prairie dogs, etc., that are smaller than sheep. The average size of all animals is about the size of a sheep. You can place 35,000 sheep in 146 railroad boxcars specially designed with three tiers of flooring.