Inks Lake State Park located in Burnet, Texas shared a video on Facebook showing something rarely ever seen, much less captured on film and it’s of an armadillo swimming!
“Now this is something you don’t see every day,” Inks Lake State Park wrote on Facebook.
The video showed the armadillo almost completely submerged in the water as it awkwardly doggy-paddled occasionally raising its head above the surface to gulp a fresh breath of air.
Texas Parks and Wildlife said while the animal’s shell is useful in most occasions, when in the water, it’s heavy and certainly a handicap.
To increase its buoyancy, the armadillo will gulp air, inflating its stomach and intestines to double in size and make a built-in life preserver.
Researchers working with the state said at one point, they conducted an experiment with a pool of water eight feet wide to test the armadillo’s ability to navigate underwater.
The water level in the pool was about six inches deep for the first six feet and then increased to twelve inches for the last two feet.
Texas Parks and Wildlife wrote on their website, “An armadillo released at the edge readily entered the water and walked across the pool. During the experiment, it was forced to make ten round-trip crossings. Each time, whether entering from the shallow or deeper side, it walked instead of swimming. It was completely submerged in the twelve-inch water, but the top of its shell was exposed in the shallower water. An interesting thing happened during the experiment. Although the armadillo did not do so in the beginning, on later crossings it held its muzzle above the surface when walking through the shallow water.”
Wildlife experts say armadillos can hold their breath for up to 4-6 minutes!