Can Elephants Swim?

Elephants, like most mammals including humans are known to be very good, untiring swimmers. Moving all four legs to swim they are able to do so quickly and efficiently and even better than most mammals. Amazingly enough, their massive bodies surprisingly provide enough floatation while their trunks act as a sort of snorkel device. It should be noted that elephants mostly swim with their face above water and their mouths below the water’s surface. As mentioned before, they use their trunks as a sort of snorkel and doing so permits them to breathe while they are underwater.

As elephants are very efficient at swimming and are also very strong, massive animals, they can swim long distances with great ease unlike some mammals who may have a harder time. Experts have even suggested that elephants may have once swam from Southern India to Sri Lankia, where they eventually settled.

Elephants love water and they also love to swim, younger elephants in particular. They also enjoy diving into the water and find great fun in fighting the waves and climbing about in the water onto the older elephant group members before splashing playfully back into the water. They can also be seen bathing in the water or wandering about, shooting water from their trunks playfully at one another and all kinds of other crazy antics.

Contrary to what some people may believe, elephants do not tire very easily when swimming. In fact, an elephant becoming tired from swimming is almost unheard of! Their trunks may even be seen every now and then peeping up above the water’s surface to take a breath, but not long after you will see it disappear beneath the surface again as they continue swimming along their way, quickly and efficiently to their next destination.