How did all the animals fit on the ark? The ark had a volume of about 1.5 million cubic feet. It did not look like the ridiculous little tub with giraffes sticking their heads out the windows, as often illustrated in children’s books. Of the 600 species of dinosaurs ever named, many are named from a single fragment of bone. Dinosaurs hatch from eggs the size of grapefruits, and most likely small young ones got on board. The total number of land dinosaurs, mammals, reptiles, and amphibian species is probably less than 20,000. Of the 9,000 bird species 400 are hummingbirds. Whales and fish did not get on the ark.

Modern species ( a manmade classification) are not the same as the original created kinds. The original created kind more closely corresponds to the genus or family. Camels and llamas can successfully cross-breed, and came from the original created basic type.



The modern species of the horse basic type - zebras, quaggas, asses, kiangs, kiangers, and onagers - descended from the pair of equines that got on the ark. The original pair was much more heterozygous and able to produce a great variety of offspring. The modern species are specialized by loss of genetic variety in response to the variety of environments and due to genetic drift. The chromosomes are rearranged so that a cross between a horse and zebra results in hybrid offspring that is usually nonfertile.

The four-toed eohippus (Hyracotherium) was probably not related to horses at all, but to the coney or hyrax.

Fossil horses in the same rock formation in Nebraska have from one to three toes. This indicates they lived at the same time.

O. C. Marsh, 'Recent polydactyle horses', American Journal of Science 43, 1892, pp 339."both fore and hind feet may each have two extra digits fairly developed, and all of nearly equal size thus corresponding to the feet of the extinct protohippus."
A few horses in the late 1800s in Texas had three toes, digits II, III, and IV.

Modern horse types have one digit (III). The genetic information coding for extra toes is present, but is switched off in most modern horses. Some creationists believe this reflects adaptation within the horse kind to a change from woodland to grassland, caused by cooling and drying of the post-Flood Earth. The splint bones in one-toed horses still have jobs to do. They strengthen the legs, muscles attach to them, and they form a groove to house the elastic suspensory ligament that supports the horse’s weight.

Suetonius:
"[Julius Caesar] used to ride a remarkable horse, which had feet that were almost human, the hoofs being cleft like toes.  It was born in his own stables, and as the soothsayers declared that it showed its owner would be lord of the world, he reared it with great care, and was the first to mount it; it would allow no other rider."