Creation Basics: Were Dinosaurs on Noah’s Ark?

Dinosaurs are land animals, and all land animals were to go “two by two” onto Noah’s ark (the clean ones in pairs of seven).

Yes, absolutely! You see, dinosaurs are land animals, and all land animals were to go “two by two” onto Noah’s ark (the clean ones in pairs of seven). Because of evolutionary thinking, many Christians struggle to picture dinosaurs interacting with humans, let alone boarding Noah’s ark! But the Bible teaches that all the land animals were created on day six of creation week, and that would include those first called dinosaurs in 1841. So, yes, dinosaurs and man lived together. In fact, the reason we even have dinosaur fossils today is because of the global flood which buried billions of creatures, including dinosaurs, thus forming fossils.

But how did the dinosaurs fit on the ark? Well, to answer this question, you need to understand two things:

1. The size of the ark. Noah’s ark wasn’t the overloaded “bathtub ark” that so many of us picture because of the illustrations we’ve seen in children’s literature over the years. No, the ark was a massive ship—510 feet long, 51 feet high, and 85 feet wide (it’s really an awe-inspiring experience to see our life-size Ark reconstruction in person at the Ark Encounter).

2. The size of dinosaurs. Now, some dinosaurs did grow to enormous sizes (more on them in a moment), but the vast majority were much smaller, with the average dinosaur growing to about the size of a bison (buffalo). So most dinosaurs wouldn’t have had any more trouble entering and living on the ark than a large horse would!

   But what about the really big ones? Well, keep in mind that no dinosaur starts out that big! Even the largest dinosaur kinds, like the sauropods, hatched from relatively small eggs (the largest egg is only a little larger than a football). It’s not likely God sent Noah the oldest, biggest dinosaurs. He probably sent juveniles who would take up less space, eat less, produce less waste, and live longer to reproduce after the flood.

Yes, the 50–70 dinosaur kinds (not species, kinds—at about the level of family) had no trouble fitting onto Noah’s ark and being cared for by Noah and his family for the yearlong voyage. Then, after the flood, they entered the brand-new world and lived and reproduced for a time before gradually dying out, likely for the same reasons creatures go extinct today (human over-hunting, habitat loss, climate changes, etc.).

Dinosaurs aren’t a big mystery when we start with the history in God’s Word.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,
Ken

This item was written with the assistance of AiG’s research team.