There are only two types of animals — those which can swim and those which cannot. Why are humans the only creature that has the optional swimming feature they can turn on?
In: Biology
It’s possible that many animals could swim but cannot produce environments to learn without dying before they master it.
Babies need to learn to walk, it’s a month-long process during which they fall a lot and where parents need to be cautious depending on the kid’s temperament. In the worst cases, trial and error leads to minor injuries. Learning to swim on the other hand require a whole lot more logistics otherwise the consequence is simply drowning. It took my youngest kid about 2 months from standing and doing a couple of steps, to being able to walk around on most easy terrain. That’s with access to walking surface pretty much all day, and he really only cared about walking and would practice constantly. It’s a lot more difficult to provide safe swimming practice, so it’s learned later, when lots of fears have been learned and many natural instincts have been lost.
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