The dietary laws of the Old Testament carefully prescribed what creatures could be eaten by the Israelite nation. Leviticus 11:13-19 gives a list of various birds and bats. Bats are not classified as “fowl” in the modern delineation but were for the Hebrews. Then we have a special command in verse 20: ”All fowls that creep, going upon all four, shall be an abomination unto you.” What are these unclean fowl that go on all fours? Some commentators point out that the Hebrew word here for “fowl” [`owph] simply means “flying things” and they suggest that this verse references insects. But the six-legged insects are dealt with in their own section in verses 21-23. Could the fowl on all fours be penguins? Penguins use their wings to fly through the water and to get up on land, but then they walk on just two feet.

Joe Taylor suggests another group of animals that fit the bill nicely: pterosaurs (Taylor, Joe, Giants Against Evolution, 2012, p. 113.). Today’s scientists classify the pterosaurs among the reptiles rather than the birds. But the Pterodactyloid pterosaurs, with their headcrests and short tails, would likely have been lumped in with the fowl by the ancient Hebrews. (It seems that a species of long-tailed Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaurs was known as a flying serpent to the Hebrews.) We know from fossil trackways that many of these Pterodactyloid pterosaurs scurried around on all fours. Obviously it is just a possible theory, but there may well have been living pterosaurs still thriving in the region of the Middle East during the times of the Exodus.