IMPOSSIBLE VOYAGE OF
NOAH'S ARK

A SPECIAL CONTINGENT OF MARSUPIALS
BEAT THE PLACENTAL MAMMALS TO AUSTRALIA?

The marsupial population of Australia contains animals found nowhere else on earth - not even in fossil form. Are we to suppose that those marsupials managed to travel from the landing place of Noah's ark to Australia? What a long perilous post-Flood journey. I guess God guided them. But you don't hear about that miracle in the Bible. Why not? It's at least as good as the story about God herding the Israelites through the desert, only these marsupials were herded through a denuded post-Flood earth undergoing cataclysms galore. This menagerie of wombats and koalas, bandicoots and kangaroos (not to mention the flightless moa and kiwi birds of New Zealand) had to keep ahead of lions-'n-tigers-'n-bears all the way to Indonesia, and then - although the superior placental mammals could not manage it - reach the continent of Australia. As if this were not mind boggling enough, it turns out that the types of marsupials that made it to Australia just happened to form an ensemble able to fill all the ecological niches available! Thus, there were marsupial moles, ant-eaters, mice, grazers, carnivores, frugivores, etc. - not one of which can be found anywhere else in the world. If this highly diversified marsupial population evolved from one or a few primitive generalized marsupials that reached Australia millions of years before it separated from Indonesia (and before mammals had evolved), then this peculiar situation is understandable. But if all these creatures had to journey from Turkey to Australia as an ensemble, it is incredible beyond computation. (Note: Molecular biology and anatomy both demonstrate that, of living marsupial groups, koalas are most closely related to wombats. And both the living species and fossilized remains of koalas and wombats are found only in Australia. Did such fragile creatures as the platypus and the blind marsupial mole race across the land bridge to Australia quicker than the Malaysian tigers and other robust placentals?

From Robert A. Moore, "The Impossible Voyage of Noah's Ark"