Are you talking about the body fat % of women or men?
Fair enough.
This study found averages of 12% in males and 15% in females, still a far cry from 4%.
Also interesting to note:
Now, back to the OP.
Nope. The point is: you were wrong.
Here’s what you said:
You attempted to assert that because buoyancy makes swimming easier, humans having more body fat makes them better swimmers than other apes. As your evidence, you offered comparison to the body fat of other aquatic animals.
Other aquatic animals have body fat for entirely different reasons than buoyancy. For most aquatic animals, increased buoyancy is actually detrimental. And still has absolutely nothing to do with humans and/or apes swimming. Unless you are asserting that humans are aquatic animals, too? Also absurd.
Furthermore, your study does not support the contention that more fat = more buoyancy = better swimmer. All it says is that competitive swimmers have higher body fat than runners. It guesses at – but does not establish – several reasons. Another potential reason: competitive swimmers also lose body heat to the water during training.
Nope, at no time did I state that humans having more body fat makes them better swimmers than apes.
Marine mammals to be precise, not good analogies to the man vs. ape comparison, I’ll admit but they do achieve a neutral net buoyancy due to their high body fat content whether you think so or not.
Aquatic Animals? Correct. Marine mammals? Not quite.
Positive net buoyancy? Correct. Neutral versus negative net buoyancy? No.
Yes, absurd, I said no such thing.
The cite was to refute Turpentine’s ridiculous claim of 4% body fat in Olympic swimmers and to answer John Mace’s inquiry as to the gender difference.
I merely said the study was “interesting”.
Maybe… except that when training and/or competing they need to shed all that excess heat.
My honest answer to the actual OP is that, the main reason humans are better swimmers than all other primates is because we are smarter.
Do other apes not have a ball and socket shoulder joint?
In this video, Cooper the Chimp, who seems to be a virtual Michael Phelps among his kind, mostly just wades in a pool and jumps in a few times. He makes a few vague stroking movements but can’t be said to actually swim at any point.
Here’s an orangutan which is also willing to get in the water, but like the chimp it makes a few stroking movements with its arms but can’t really move itself in the water. Despite the title of the video, it never actually swims.
Considering how imitative the are of humans and all the other things they can be trained to do, the fact that apes have such difficulty learning to swim is remarkable.
They do, but our tendons and ligaments hook things up so that we can better store elastic energy in our shoulder according to this Nature abstract.
Just saw this video First documented video evidence of apes swimming is released.
Granted, it is not wild apes doing this, but still.
OOps. Looks like the same animals as in Colibri’s post, but different footage.
You can teach old Apes new tricks.
Ah. Thanks.
Cooper the Chimp is the same. I’m not sure about the Orangutan. But it’s interesting footage, because both are swimming much more than in the videos I linked to. They are actually taking more than a few vague strokes, and are moving forward through the water.
It occurs to me that humans aren’t much better swimmers really. Learning to swim takes time and practice, meaning it’s not a skill you would even consider looking for in other animals. Someone who can’t swim (and that means most humans) will drown in water above his/her height, or in shallow turbulent water.
Toddlers and people who aren’t panicking about “OMG I’m in water!” do that too. We need to learn proper styles, but dog paddling is as natural for humans as for dogs.
The orang did, but the video I watched just showed the chimp floating and “diving” a bit. Hard to swim when you have to cover your face with one of your hands. I would not call what the chimp was doing “swimming”.
Monkeys swim pretty good after all. 
I saw some of these little guys about 12 years ago when we vacationed in Florida.
Apparently monkeys like sex too. Geez, a 1000 descendants from 6 monkeys left in the late 30’s.
Tell that to polar bears (among others).