Mitochondrial DNA Analysis of Three Terrestrial Mammal Baramins (Equidae, Felidae, and Canidae) Implies an Accelerated Mutation Rate Near the Time of the Flood

If modern species descended from “two of every kind” aboard Noah’s Ark, as creationists commonly assert, then intrabaraminic diversification and speciation must have been extremely rapid. Although there has been limited creationist research on the genetic component of the speciation mechanism, a simple means of gaining insight into possible molecular mechanisms related to speciation is to evaluate the molecular diversity of known baramins, especially those with ancient DNA (aDNA) sequences recovered from extinct taxa, which can give us a window to the genetic diversity of a baramin soon after the Flood. Here, published mitochondrial DNA sequences from members of three baramins (Equidae, Felidae, and Canidae) are evaluated. For each group, the results show that the diversity of the aDNA sequences fall within the range of modern sequences, thus implying that the modern sequence diversity must have already been established by the time the fossils were formed soon after the Flood. Comparisons to outgroups also indicate that transversion substitutions might be a means of distinguishing different baramins