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Just how many
animals actually traveled on Noah's Ark?
How did Noah's Ark manage to stay afloat?
Estimates of the number of species on earth are surging into
apparently hull-busting millions as biologists find new life almost everywhere
they look, from African swamps to Antarctica.
The ever-widening menagerie is a paradox when an expanding
human population, pollution and climate change threaten what United Nations'
studies say is the worst spate of extinctions since the dinosaurs were wiped
out 65 million years ago.
Government officials trying to protect the modern world's
wildlife gather in Bonn from May 19-30 for a meeting of the U.N. Convention on
Biological Diversity, to examine progress towards a goal set in 2002 of slowing
biodiversity loss by 2010.
Most experts say the target is slipping out of reach.
Even so, wider research means finds of new species such as a
legless lizard in Brazil or a Tanzanian shrew are testing biblical scholars'
calculations on how Noah squeezed all animals aboard the Ark.
"It's of course physically impossible," James
Edwards, executive director of the Encyclopedia of Life, said of the biblical
account.
The Encylopedia is cataloguing all identified species, 1.8
million so far, in a free online service (http://www.eol.org/).
"There are expectations of 8 to 50 million more species
out there that we haven't identified yet," Edwards said. Other experts'
estimates of the numbers range up to 100 million.
But the newly found species do not compensate for
extinctions.
Sigmar Gabriel, environment minister for the U.N. conference
host Germany, said last week that the loss of species threatened food supplies
for billions of people. He cited marine life, saying that if nothing was done
there would be no commercial fishing by 2050.
Extinctions of recent decades include Australia's southern
gastric brooding frog -- the females could shut off their stomach juices to
raise young in their stomachs, a trick that could have held clues for curing
human ulcers.
Believers in the Bible note that the Ark described in the
Book of Genesis was a giant ship by ancient standards about 140 meters (460
ft.) long -- far from the tiny vessel depicted in many children's books with
giraffes' heads sticking out the top.
In the biblical account, Noah safeguarded life on the planet
after God, upset by the wickedness and violence of mankind, sent a devastating
flood. "Everything on earth will perish," God said, according to the
Bible.
All creatures
Noah only took along land creatures and birds, not plants or
fish that make up a large part of the world's total species.
"We're talking about something plausible here,"
said David Menton, an associate professor emeritus of anatomy at Washington
University who works for Answers in Genesis, founder of a controversial
Creation Museum in Kentucky.
The museum, which opened last year, depicts the Bible's
first book, Genesis, as literal truth. Its exhibits have been welcomed by those
who believe that God created the heavens and the Earth in six days about 6,000
years ago.
Menton reckoned that Noah probably only had to take aboard
about 16,000 creatures and said that most projected species discoveries are of
tiny organisms.
"And we can leave out all organisms known to survive
extensive flooding -- such as insects and worms," he said.
Even though creationists reject evolution, Menton said Noah
may have taken along pairs to represent closely related "kinds" of
animals such as dogs, wolves, coyotes and dingos, or just one pair for cows and
buffaloes or tigers and lions.
He said Noah might have saved space by bringing along juveniles,
including dinosaurs such as T-Rex or giant sauropods that could grow up to 30
meters (98 ft.) long. Creationists believe that dinosaurs co-existed with
humans.
The dimensions of the wooden Ark, given in cubits in the
Book of Genesis, imply it was about 140 meters long, 23 wide and 13.5 high. It
had three levels, meaning a total deck space of just short of 10,000 square
meters (107,600 sq. ft.).
"The cargo capacity of such a ship would be impressive
for those times and could be as large as 30,000 tons," said Dragos Rauta,
an expert at the International Association of Independent Tanker Owners
(INTERTANKO).
Even so, the vessel would struggle to comply with modern
marine transport guidelines, even with a few thousand creatures.
Noah and his family took along at least two of every type of
animal and bird, and food for all on a voyage that lasted for months. The Bible
also says that "clean" animals, or those deemed fit for eating such
as cattle, sheep and goats, were taken in sevens.
Bjorn Clausen, managing director of Danish livestock
shipping experts Corral Line AS, said large cows need at least 2 square meters
each when held in pens for half a dozen animals.
"For animals like tigers, I'm not an expert but I'd say
if you sail you'd need at least 4 square meters for a single tiger," he
said. What with other big animals such as kangaroos and rhinoceroses, the Ark
would have quickly filled up.
Hot and cold
And zebras, penguins, vultures, pandas and antelope all need
very different temperatures, food and habitats.
"Noah would have to be a very skilled heating and
ventilation engineer ... to have polar bears and iguanas on the same
boat," said Jesse Ausubel, chairman of the Encylopedia of Life at
Rockefeller University in New York City.
"I'm not sure about the volume but ... they wouldn't
all want the same conditions in their cabins," he said.
The 2005 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, a study by more
than 1,300 scientists, estimated the number of identified species at 1.7-2
million with the final total likely to be between 5 and 30 million.
Of the named species, the biggest group by far, numbering
around 1 million, are insects, centipedes and millipedes. Other big groups
include plants, vertebrates -- such as humans or whales -- and molluscs.
Mammals alone total more than 5,000 species -- a few live in the sea, like
whales.
In a line taken by creationists to argue that insects
survived outside the Ark, Genesis says "everything on dry land that had
the breath of life in its nostrils died" in the flood.
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