

Do Giraffes Float? - mhb
http://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology/2010/06/giraffe_flotation_dynamics.php

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fh
I couldn't find an explanation of why one can't just put a real giraffe in a
tank, fill it with water and "see what happens". (Obviously I suggest doing
this in such a way that one can quickly rescue the giraffe in case it's not
buoyant after all.)

It makes complete sense to me that most land mammals have at least rudimentary
swimming capabilities, because it's probably selected for. Not very often, of
course, but whenever there's a flood, all non-swimming animals in a region die
at once, which is a lot of selection pressure.

~~~
jcl
I guess the trouble and expense outweighs the curiosity. In particular, I bet
the intersection of people who have a spare giraffe and people who don't mind
an ASPCA/PETA protest is very small.

Another example of an easily testable issue: Do people swim faster or slower
in a more viscous fluid? Newton and Huygens, among others, argued back and
forth over this, but no one bothered setting up an experiment until 2004. The
paper went on to win an Ig Nobel Prize. (Answer: Viscosity doesn't seem to
affect a person's swimming speed.)

[http://www.nature.com/news/2004/040920/full/news040920-2.htm...](http://www.nature.com/news/2004/040920/full/news040920-2.html)

~~~
mawhidby
Along the same lines, the Mythbusters had an episode about swimming in syrup.
Here's a link to the first part of the episode:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hs4Q5jZSJbA>

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dabent
I found this image with the different patters and distributions of the giraffe
populations more interesting than the main question of the article.

[http://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology/Brown-et-
al-2007_Gir...](http://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology/Brown-et-
al-2007_Giraffa_phylogeography_June-2010.jpg)

I had always thought of all giraffes as having the same pattern.

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stcredzero
A silly (& interesting) question, but good science journalism. What a
difference it makes when the author actually knows and cares!

Is it just me, or are a lot of the animations and diagrams on Discovery
channel just brain-dead? Very often, the geometry is wrong, or there are lots
of places where the animator reveals subtle cluelessness. Contrast this to the
diagrams in this article. The pictures themselves can spur "ah ha!" moments
because they are based on real dynamics.

(Horses and dogs seem to exert effort to keep their heads above water. Here's
why!)

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DanielBMarkham
Somebody told me when I was 17 that he was so smart he could "teach baby
chickens to swim"

I spent 20 years wondering about chickens and their swimming ability, finally
giving up. Why did I wonder so much? Because it was unsolved, it was a simple
question, and everybody had a different opinion about the matter. You'd think
that something that simple would be obvious. As Kahn said about a different
thing _He tasks me! He tasks me, and I shall have him! I'll chase him round
the Moons of Nibia, and round the Antares Maelstrom, and round perdition's
flames before I give him up!_

It is uniquely annoying.

During that process, however, which included blogging, diagramming various
chicken breeds, and questions posed to experts, people told me that giraffes
also could not swim. "You take a giraffe, drop him out of a helicopter over
the ocean, and he'll drown"

I find this hard to believe, and without access to a helicopter or a giraffe,
cannot say for sure. But scanning the article, I get to the end:

 _Unfortunately, we don't really know enough to be sure whether these
distributional limits actually have anything to do with the ability or
inability of giraffes to cross water._

I may get hit by a truck tomorrow, but at least I know that the computational
fluid dynamics of giraffes, and perhaps chickens, will continue to be studied.
One day, my friends, we will know the answer. :)

EDIT: Blog entry from five years ago this month:
[http://www.whattofix.com/blog/archives/2005/06/can_chickens_...](http://www.whattofix.com/blog/archives/2005/06/can_chickens_sw.php)

~~~
ugh
Wait, what? Twenty years of wondering and controversy and you didn’t even test
it? It seems to me that you are rather interested in a good argument than a
good answer :)

If I were to test this I would look at two things:

1\. Can you teach chickens anything at all? (You want to explore the
teachability of chickens first – if chickens drown in the second step and you
find out that you can’t actually teach chickens anything meaningful you can
already be pretty confident that teaching chickens to swim is impossible.)

2\. How do “default” chickens behave when thrown into water?

2b. (If chickens drown when thrown into water:) How would you have to change
their behavior if you wanted them to keep afloat? Is such a change within the
scope of chickens’ teachability?

Seems like perfectly reasonable, straightforward testing to me. Something the
Mythbusters could (should, actually!) do.

~~~
ars
I don't have a spare chicken, so I'm not totally sure, but I think chickens
would float quite well. And their default flap wings to run faster behavior
would also do pretty well to get them moving in water.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
I have literally typed 4 replies to ugh, deleting them before I posted them
and then coming back to this page.

I refuse to start this again. 20 years! I will say that there are a lot of
problems here, including type of chicken, time of year, and whether the
chicken is in fear of it's life or if it knows you're just playing around. I
think you'd have the same problem with giraffes.

EDIT: It's also in the feathers. Chickens aren't ducks, so their feathers are
made differently. Proponents of non-swimming chickens point to the lack of
webbed feet, quality of the feathers, and absence of any aquatic chicken
relatives.

~~~
ars
Shall I test it for you next time I have a spare chicken? :)

Edit: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56av1QuM8MM>

There you go. Your 20 years of suffering are over. Chickens float, and swim.

~~~
ugh
You should, of course, rescue the chicken if it can’t swim. That’s not as
wasteful and you can test different methods of getting the chicken into water.

– edit: More floating than swimming. Now you start having the really stupid
arguments: Is putting a chicken into water and letting it just float there the
same as teaching a chicken how to swim? Ah, semantics. Bane of humanity.

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eande
My 6 year old daughter kept asking if giraffe can swim, which I could not
really answer or find answers to it. Now I got a logic answer, thank you.

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tjmaxal
Isn't the real question what is the probability of a giraffe swimming?

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forinti
Only if they are not witch giraffes.

~~~
stcredzero
Now we have a data point for Monty Python appreciation on HN.

 _Really small_ ones would float.

NITPICK: They'd just skitter on the surface tension.

