According to Genesis 6, Noah was initially told to bring two of every kind of animal into the Ark.
Genesis 6:19–20 instructs Noah to bring a male and a female of every kind of bird, land animal, and ground creature so that they could survive and reproduce. This is the general animal-preservation instruction given before the Flood begins.
A common source of confusion is Genesis 7:2–3, which gives a more specific instruction: Noah is told to take seven pairs of clean animals and one pair of animals that are not clean, along with seven pairs of birds. The answer “two” matches the broad instruction in Genesis 6, while the later passage adds a distinction based on ritual classification.
The text uses categories such as “kind,” not the modern biological term “species.” For that reason, the biblical wording should not be converted directly into a modern species count. The safest canonical answer to the general question is two: one male and one female.