How Did Animals Get TO the Ark?

These questions all stem from false assumptions about the biblical account of the flood. Firstly, the Bible makes it clear that Noah did not round up the animals and bring them to the ark. God brought the animals to Noah. Genesis 6:20 (ESV) says the animals “shall come in to you to keep them alive.” God divinely controlled which animals were brought to Noah and led them to the ark.

Secondly, the animal species seen today likely did not exist 4,400 years ago during the time of Noah. God brought representatives (a pair of the unclean animals and seven pairs of clean animals and birds) of all air-breathing land animal and bird kinds to the ark, not all animal species (Genesis 6:19–20, 7:2–3, 8-9, 14–16). A kind is not the same thing as a species. In today’s scientific world, organisms are grouped into categories based on similarities in a system called taxonomy. Overall, the seven basic groups from broad to specific are kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species. People today are used to referring to animals by species. However, the biblical kind is a broader term that usually falls at the order or family level. There are often many species within a single created kind. For example, the tortoise kind (family Testudinidae) includes about 50 species today, such as the Galápagos tortoise, red-footed tortoise, and Russian tortoise. However, God would not have sent Noah a pair of Galápagos tortoises, a pair of red-footed tortoises, a pair of Russian tortoises, etc. The species seen today likely did not exist yet. God would have brought a single pair of tortoises representing the tortoise kind to the ark. Those two tortoises would have vast genetic potential that has now filtered down into their descendants seen today as recognizable species. The animals on the ark may have looked and behaved quite differently than the species we see today. So there were likely no Hoffmann’s two-toed sloths, southern cassowaries, or Galápagos tortoises swimming to the ark (although—fun fact—sloths and cassowaries are excellent swimmers and Galápagos tortoises float).

Before the global flood, there was only one “supercontinent” and one “ocean” (Genesis 1:9-10, 2 Peter 3:6).

Finally, the separated continents and oceans seen today did not exist before Noah’s flood. Before the global flood, there was only one “supercontinent” and one “ocean” (Genesis 1:9–10; 2 Peter 3:6). There were no South America, Australia, or the Galápagos Islands yet. There were no Atlantic, Indian, or Pacific Oceans. Noah was not located in the region known today as the Middle East, as that did not exist yet. The modern continents are made of pieces from the original supercontinent that was broken apart during the flood when the fountains of the great deep burst forth (Genesis 7:11). The resulting molten rock surging up from the mantle beneath the earth’s surface forced the pieces across the globe, opening up the ocean basins and creating today’s mountain ranges when they crashed into each other. Therefore, the animals brought by God to Noah did not have to swim across oceans to reach the ark. They simply walked or flew.

Once the assumptions that the world and its animals today are the same as they were in the past are removed, and once Scripture has been examined, the question of how animals came to Noah’s ark becomes quite clear. Through divine intervention, God directed the chosen animals to walk or fly across the single supercontinent to the ark. Answering this question emphasizes the importance of not being taken captive by man’s ideas, but instead turning directly to Scripture to answer challenges (Colossians 2:8).