In the new Outside magazine (March 2001) we find out that in addition to apes, giraffes can’t swim either. Which makes sense. Plus the expert’s name was Fish.
Welcome to the SDMB. A link to the article is appreciated. It is Is the camel the only animal that can’t swim? 10-Oct-2000
Not having seen the article, do they provide any evidence for that, or do they just assert it as a fact? I have seen the statement made that giraffes cannot swim, but wondered how that was tested, and have never seen any specific evidence cited.
For apes, on the other hand, there is abundant observational evidence that they are unable to swim, as mentioned in the follow-up thread here, (which has the incredible distinction of containing my very first post on the SDMB. :D)
::: imagining a group of white-clad lab assistants, throwing a giraffe into a very deep swimming pool… one assistant, with clipboard and heavy glasses, taking notes with a stopwatch :::
Sorry about the incomplete post.
The article (“The Wild File” by Stephanie Gregory, March 2001 Outside) cites “Frank Fish, an expert on the enegetics of swimming at West Chester University.”
“The reason for the giraffe’s inability to swim is painful self-evident: Like a keel without a hull, the long necked creature simply cannot stay upright in the water.”
So does the article state that Mr. Fish actually observed a giraffe keeling over in water that was too deep to wade in? Or might he have just been speculating?
Given the fact that in the other thread it was established that such unlikely critters as sloths, armadillos, moles, kangaroos, elephants, and even bats can swim, I’m not prepared to accept the proposition that giraffes can’t until someone actually tosses a few in the (very) deep end and records what happens (as Dex says, equipped with white lab coats and clipboards :D).
I hereby volunteer!! Someone provide me with a giraffe and a deep pool, and this particular chunk of ignorance shall be well and thoroughly fought!
If you’re a giraffe, why would you need to learn how to swim? Just walk on the bottom and stick your head out. It may sound like I’m kidding, but how often would a giraffe in the wild encounter a situation where swimming would be a survival matter?
This link Cheyenne Zoo specifically says there are no known cases of giraffes swimming. Does that prove it? No.
In support of giraffes being able to swim come this reportBBC
The link says there is film of giraffes trying to cross a river, then turning around and coming back. It could have been as Arnold said, they might have been cheating by walking across the river.
This reply to the previous link says there was a National Geographic article showing camels wallowing about in the ocean. Whatever that means.
Sorry. Can’t seem to make two links in one post. Something is screwy. Maybe because they come from the same general url.
This site BBC would indicate that there is film of giraffes going into a flooded river and getting half way, then coming back. They, of course, could have been pulling an Arnold and cheating by walking.
Well, the thing is, most mammals seem to manage to swim instinctively even if they haven’t encountered deep water before. Jill’s column established that camels can swim, even if they rarely need the ability. Likewise, I doubt that bats often paddle about for pleasure or out of necessity, yet in the other thread someone provided an observation of a bat swimming under duress. And I suspect that a dog that had never encountered deep water before would quite sucessfully and spontaneously dog-paddle if it fell off a boat.
Swimming ability is a primitive trait. As long as a mammal (1) has positive buoyancy, (2) has limbs it can move to propel itself, and (3) has a structure that allows it to keep its head above water, it should be able to swim. The main question about giraffes is whether their unusual structure would cause them to fail on provision three. While one might easily imagine this might be so, I am highly skeptical in the absence of actual observations.
The inability of apes to swim is very puzzling indeed, since as I remarked in the other thread it seems to be more psychological than physical.
I’m writing a grant to the National Science Foundation right now. Send me your c.v. and I’ll put you down as giraffe wrangler (and I presume you can document your previous experience in the field, of course? ;))
Well, I mainly deal with bacteria and cell cultures, but it’s not that much of a leap to giraffes…
True, but here’s what I was thinking. When a bat falls into a river, it’s swim or drown, so it has to swim out of necessity as you said. A bat being a flying (and tiny) creature could often find itself in a situation where it might fall into water too deep for it to touch bottom. A dog, having short legs, could easily happen upon a body of water that would require it to swim (e.g. by falling in). On the other hand, a giraffe, even if it falls into Lake Victoria, would probably be close enough to shore that it could just walk out.
samclem, the link you provide says that a BBC crew, when filming a documentary (Big Cat Diary*) was able to record some giraffes returning halfway after an unsuccessful river crossing, but it doesn’t say if the film was included in the documentary. I don’t suppose you know if Big Cat Diary* includes the giraffe footage.
I found a page that has photos from the documentary:
Big Cat Diary - Online Gallery
but of course no mention of giraffes. I’ll have to see if I can order the video somewhere.
Quite true, Arnold. I doubt that many giraffes have had much occasion to swim since the time of Noah. My main point is that the ability to swim doesn’t seem to depend on learning for most mammals (with the evident exception of humans). As long as they can float and keep their heads out of water, they won’t drown; and if they move their limbs in some sort of coordinated fashion, even as if walking, they will move through the water and thus “swim” after a fashion. So if you dumped a giraffe into the middle of the Atlantic, it might still be able to float and make headway, even if its ancestors haven’t had to do so for a very long time.
Mind you, I’m not insisting that giraffes are able to swim, just that I’m skeptical that they can’t in the absence of observations.
Smeghead, I dunno, I think I may need to find someone with experience with eucaryotes, at least. 
Quoth Colibri:
Eyewitness account here: I was present when my dog Bear (rest his soul) first encountered water too deep for him to wade in. In an effort to cure him of his fear of water (his dad was a retriever, fercryinoutloud!), we took him out on a pond in a raft, and tossed him in. He didn’t swim. He walked across the surface, some ~20 feet to the shore. Somehow, he managed to doggypaddle so vigorously, that nothing other than his legs entered the water, and his chest was dry.
As for giraffes not being able to keep their head out of the water, how could this even conceivably be a problem for a creature with a 3-meter neck?
Well, this goes back to the OP, and is exactly what Mr. Fish seems to have been saying:
So apparently what he is saying is that a giraffe’s center of gravity is so high that it will just pitch forwards (or sideways) and be unable to keep its head out of the water. But it seems to me that most of the weight is in the body, not the neck, and the long legs would provide something of a counterweight anyway. The center of gravity may well be fairly high in the torso, but I doubt very much it is so high that a giraffe can’t stay upright in the water. I think this guy Fish is just blowin’ smoke.
“He didn’t swim. He walked across the surface, some ~20 feet to the shore. Somehow, he managed to doggypaddle so vigorously, that nothing other than his legs entered the water, and his chest was dry.”
Alright! You damn aliens. What have you done with Chronos? And why did you substitute Lib’s brain? The memory thingy always betrays you. That, and the scar on the back of the neck. 
A-hah!
From Grzimeks’s Animal Life Encyclopedia, Bernhard Grzimek, 1972, Vol. 13, p. 258:
I interpret the last part to mean that Scherpner actually witnessed the giraffes crossing, and his native companions informed him that the river was too deep at that point for them to have been wading.
From East African Mammals, by Jonathan Kingdon, 1979, Vol. III, Part B, pg. 325:
Ok, not exactly a definitive statement on Kingdon’s part, but as he is the leading authority on African mammals even such a qualified statement has some weight.
It’s not as much evidence as I might like, but for my part Mr. Fish’s will actually have to produce a drowned giraffe before I believe him.
I suppose I didn’t address this point. I was thinking that it would be possible for a land mammal to have evolved in a land environment so much that it would have lost the ability to swim (see Mr. Fish of Westchester University).
However, your Mr. Scherpner might have seen swimming giraffes. Unless of course his native companions (that phrase sounds a little dated to me) were pulling his leg.