Where do animals come from?

We found that people come from their parents. But people can’t produce their own food and rely on plants and animals for their nutrition. So where do animals come from?

Like humans, animals come from their parents (only about 0.1% of animal species reproduce asexually). They inherit their genetic makeup from their parents. Can this pattern go on forever into the past? No, because according to science and the Bible, the universe had a beginning. Do you know how many generations (see Appendix) there have been since the beginning of animals?

How many generations?

The range of a generation’s length in animals spans from a few weeks for tiny insects to several decades for large mammals. For example:

2 weeks – insects
6 months – rodents
3 years – cat, birds
4 years – dog
5 years – amphibians
10 years – horse
25 years – elephant
50 years – Galapagos tortoise
60 years – whale

Genealogists and historians traditionally use 25 years as a standard length for a single generation for humans. This gave a total of about 180 generations of humanity on earth, which is an approximate number. As elephants have a similar generation length (25 years), we can assume that they would have had about 180 generations on earth. This also assumes that the length of an animal generation was longer before Noah’s flood by the same ratio as for people.

As the whale’s generation length is 2.4 times greater than for humans, they would have about 75 generations on earth. As the insect’s generation length is 0.154% that of humans, they would have about 117,000 generations on earth. So, most animals have many more generations on earth than is the case for humans.

Where did animals come from?

God made the original animals (Gen. 1:20-25; 2:19; Ps. 104:24), which were perfect – they were “good” (Gen. 1:25). Like Adam and Eve, as they were commanded to reproduce, they were created mature and didn’t go through the infancy, childhood and adolescence stages of life. Instead, they were instant adults!

All of the animals were made “according to their kinds” (Gen. 1:21, 24-25). This means that from the beginning there were many different kinds of animals, which also means that one kind of animal didn’t evolve into another kind of animal. But each kind was able to produce a range of variations – for example, there are many varieties of dogs.

The original animals were given the original genetic information which has been passed through many generations to help create all the other animals. This genetic information has been used for thousands of years to create animals across the earth.

Animals are different to people – they don’t have a conscience (Rom. 2:15) and are not answerable to God.

What have been the main events across the many generations of animals?

Significant events in the history of animals

Adam and Eve’s disobedience destroyed the harmony between God and people. It also had an impact on the rest of God’s creation – the harmony between people and creation was destroyed. It was the origin of animal suffering, pain, mutations, disease and death. The Earth became imperfect, and was no longer like the original paradise. Paul personified this by saying that creation is suffering pain like a mother in childbirth who looks forward to the day when it will be released from death and decay (Rom. 8:19-22).

God’s judgment of the global flood caused widespread death in the animal world (only two of each kind survived). The Bible emphasizes that representatives of “every” animal were saved on the ark “according to its kind” (Gen. 7:13-16). This was a genetic bottle-neck, which was like a new creation. Most of the fossils in sedimentary rocks were formed when marine and land-based animals were buried rapidly during the year-long flood. And many kinds of animals went extinct because they couldn’t survive after the flood. Their fossils are evidence of a world that was “deluged and destroyed” (2 Pt. 3:6).

There was a loss of animal genetic information and diversity at the flood. For land animals, the male genome was reduced to one male and the female genome was reduced to one female. But this diversity was still sufficient to produce all the different kinds of animals across the world. Since then, the animal genome has degraded further by new mutations occurring in each generation. So, the animal genome is degrading with time, which is opposite to the improvements with time required by the idea of biological evolution.

The flood caused the ice age, and God used the ice age to help animals migrate across the earth. As there would have been no ice caps after the Flood, the sea level would have been about 70 m above today’s level. During the Ice Age the sea level dropped about 130 m (to 60 m below today’s level) forming a land bridge between Asia and North America and Asia and Australia. This allowed animals to spread across the earth.

Conclusion

Every animal comes from someone else. They come from their parents. But when that is traced back in history, animals come from God – He designed and created them thousands of years ago. Because of this and the historical and ongoing degradation of the animal genome, animals didn’t come from other animals by the process of biological evolution.

Appendix: What is a generation length?

Scientists define generation length as the average age of parents when their offspring are born, or the age when an individual achieves half of its total reproductive output. A generation is also roughly the time it takes for a population to replace itself.

Written, October 2026

Also see: Where do people come from?