Well, it had been a busy week, comparatively speaking. First, there was nothing, then water, light, dry land plants, sun, moon, and most recently sea life and birds. However, God was not finished yet. The land needed some inhabitants. "Let the land produce living creatures; livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind. And it was so."
Many people tend to mix two biblical stories at this point - the Creation account, and the account of Noah and the Ark. Since everyone "knows" that Noah took two of every kind of animal with him on the Ark (which is not true), it is easy to conclude that God made two of every kind of land-dwelling animal. It is beyond doubt that He created only two humans in the beginning. While merely alluded to in Chapter 1 ("male and female He created them," without clarifying a quantity), it is clearly stated in the events of Chapter 2. It is reasonable to think that God brought the animals to Adam in pairs, because it says that "no suitable helper was found." It was as if Adam was naming animals, thinking, "There's two of these, two of those, over there is another pair of something...hmm, I wonder where the other one of me is?" Whether this is true or not, it is NOT automatic that God created only two of each kind of land animal, or sea animal, or bird, for that matter.
Consider that there was a LOT of land. Probably, as I mentioned, there was more land than water at this stage. What would prevent God from making a herd of animals of one type, instead of only two? Obviously, I cannot prove this hypothesis, but it certainly seems reasonable to me. On the other hand, if God did create only two, there would have been enough genetic information for natural selection to develop all of the species we see today, including all of the extinct ones that have been discovered as fossils.
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