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S38E14: Remarkable Rabbits | Clip

Swimming Rabbits Caught on Camera

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For the first time caught on camera, swamp bunnies are captured using their unique “superpower:” swimming. Their large size gives them increased buoyancy and musculature, allowing them to swim easily through flood plains and swamps.

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TRANSCRIPT

(mysterious music) - [Narrator] Deep in the swamps of Missouri, the mud and moisture combine to create an ideal habitat for stranger things.

(mysterious music) (turkey gobbling) This is a place where the swamp creatures are so secretive, they rarely get a glimpse even of each other.

In this bizarre environment, it's surprising to find rabbits.

But theses aren't any old bunnies.

(dramatic music) These are swamp rabbits.

A unique species that is the largest cottontail on the planet.

And these animals have an incredible superpower.

(bright orchestral music) Their size gives them increased buoyancy and musculature to be great swimmers.

They're so comfortable in the water that they easily move about flood plains and swamps to evade predators, find food and mates.

Swamp rabbits are shy creatures.

In fact, so little I known about them that this is the first time they've ever been filmed swimming.

Unlike other native rabbits, whose populations are on the decline, these guys are faring much better.

And as long as there's a swamp or waterway open, they can bunny-paddle their way to new territory up and down the Mississippi Valley.

(upbeat music) And once they hit land, they're just as impressive.

They leap more like deer than rabbits.

They are the iron men of the rabbit world.

(ducks quacking)