Can gorillas swim?

For many years, zoos have used water moats to confine chimpanzees, gorillas or orangutans. When apes ventured into deep water, they often drowned. read more

They can swim, but they don’t know how to swim. Primates generally don’t need to swim, so that’s why humans need to take swimming lessons before we can swim. Thanks for the A2A. read more

Humans, who are closely related to the apes, also do not swim instinctively. But unlike apes, humans are attracted to water and can learn to swim and to dive. “The behavior of the great apes in water has been largely neglected in anthropology. read more

Both gorillas and chimps avoid water and do not seem to be able to swim naturally. When in reasonably good shape the average chimp and ape sink because their proportion of muscle to fat is high (muscle is much denser that fat and sinks, fat floats). Most humans is reasonably good shape float (some people do not). read more

Quite possibly, but many primates do not inherently know how to swim. read more

The swimming strokes peculiar to humans and apes might be the result of an earlier adaptation to an arboreal life. For many years, zoos have used water moats to confine chimpanzees, gorillas or orangutans. read more