Animals in the Bible

Over 120 species of animals are mentioned in the Bible, ordered alphabetically in this article by English vernacular name. Animals mentioned in the Old Testament will be listed with their Hebrew name, while those mentioned in the New Testament will be listed with their Greek names. This list includes names of mythical creatures such as the griffin, lamia, siren and unicorn, which have been applied to real animals in some older translations of the Bible due to misunderstandings or educational prejudices of the Greek and Latin translators. In the following list D.V. stands for Douay Version, A.V. and R.V. for Authorized and Revised Version respectively.
The fauna of the Holy Land (modern-day Israel and Palestine) has significantly changed since Biblical times, with many animals mentioned in the Bible being locally extinct or endangered in modern times. For example, the aurochs (the most likely referent of the Hebrew רְאֵם‎ rəʾēm) is globally extinct, being extinct in the Levant by the time of the Babylonian captivity. Locally extinct species include lions, leopards and bears.
The frequency of references to given animals may be used to date parts of the Bible. For example, recent excavations in the Timna Valley discovered what may be the earliest camel bones found in Israel or even outside the Arabian peninsula, dating to around 930 BCE. This is seen as evidence that the stories of Abraham, Joseph, Jacob and Esau were written after this time. However, other scholars argue that camels were already domesticated in Mesopotamia by the early second millennium BCE and that their presence in the Patriarchal narratives is not anachronistic.
The Bible mentions animals from varying regions of the Middle East. The ostrich, for instance, a denizen of the torrid regions, and the camel, of the waterless districts around Palestine, are mentioned side by side with the roebuck and deer of the woody summits of Lebanon. This variety, greater probably in Palestine than in any other country in the same latitude, is attributed to the great extremes of elevation and temperature in this small area. Palestinian fauna is not as rich today as it was during the Biblical times. The land is barren today but was well wooded when the Bible was written, especially on the hills east of the Jordan River.
Although no regular classification is to be sought for in the Bible, animal creation is there practically divided into four classes, often called kinds, according to the four different modes of locomotion. The first class, the beasts, in the Biblical parlance, includes all large, walking animals, with the exception of the amphibia, such small animals as moles, mice and the like, and humans as they were not classified as animals.
Beasts are divided into cattle, or domesticated (behemoth in the strict sense), and beasts of the field, i.e. wild animals. The fowls, which constitute the second class, include not only the birds, but also "all things that fly", even if they "go upon four feet", as the different kinds of locusts. Of the many "living beings that swim in the water" no particular species is mentioned; the "great whales" are set apart in that class, while the rest are divided according to whether or not they had fins or scales (Leviticus 11:9, 10).
The reptiles, or "creeping things", form the fourth class. References to this class are relatively few. The "creeping things" include not only reptiles, but all short-legged animals or insects which seem to crawl rather than to walk, such as moles, lizards, etc. From a religious viewpoint, all these animals are divided into two classes, clean and unclean, according to whether they can, or cannot, be eaten.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Souvay, Charles Léon (1907). "Animals in the Bible". In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 1. New York: Robert Appleton Company.