This sea otter decided on the all you can eat crab legs for its evening meal. Photo by David Ledig, Bureau of Land Management.
6. Sea otters have the thickest fur of any animal. Their fur contains between 600,000 to 1,000,000 hair follicles per square inch. Unlike most other marine mammals, otters lack a blubber layer. Instead, they depend on their dense, water-resistant fur to provide insulation. To keep warm, sea otters spend a large portion of their days grooming and conditioning their fur. This traps air and heat next to their skin.
A sea otter grooms itself to stay warm. Photo by Lilian Carswell, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
7. Sea otters can have a pup any time of the year. Southern sea otters breed and pup year-round, while northern sea otter pups in Alaska are usually born in the spring. A newborn pup needs constant attention and will stay with its mother for six months until it develops survival skills. Fun fact: An otter pup’s fur is so dense that it can’t dive underwater until it gets its adult fur. This comes in handy when mothers leave their pups safely floating on the water’s surface while they forage for food.
A baby sea otter lays on its mothers stomach while they both float in the water with other otters
A mother sea otter carries her pup. Photo by Lilian Carswell, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
8. Don’t challenge otters to a breath holding competition. An otter’s lung capacity is 2.5 times greater than that of similar-sized land mammals. Sea otters have been known to stay submerged for more than 5 minutes at a time. River otters, however, can hold their breath for up to 8 minutes. The increased time underwater improves otters’ opportunity to sense prey and forage for food.
A sea otter floats and grooms in the waters at Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve in Alaska. Photo by the National Park Service.
9. Otters are an essential keystone species. A “keystone species” is a species that is critical to how an ecosystem functions because it has large-scale effects on the communities in which it lives. Along the Pacific coast, sea otters help control the sea urchin population. Fewer sea urchins in turn help prevent kelp forests from being overgrazed. In California, research has found that sea otters also enhance seagrass beds, and in Alaska’s Glacier Bay National Park, sea otters’ expansion into the area marked a gradual return of a more diverse ecosystem and an exciting moment in colonization efforts.
By rubbing their flippers and forepaws simultaneously, sea otters increase the efficiency of a grooming session. Photo by Lilian Carswell, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
10. The otter is one of the few mammals that use tools. A sea otter’s tool of choice: typically a rock that can be used as a hammer or anvil to break open hard-shelled prey. Ever wonder where otters actually store these tools for safe keeping? They have a loose patch of skin under their armpit to store both the food they’ve foraged and their rock to crack it open.
An otter enjoys a snack of fresh mussels at Kenai Fjords National Park in Alaska. Photo by Anne Langan, National Park Service.
11. A group of resting otters is called a raft. Otters love to rest in groups. Researchers have seen concentrations of over 1,000 otters floating together. To keep from drifting away from each other, sea otters will wrap themselves up in seaweed, forming something that resembles a raft.
A raft of otters resting in a group. Photo by Lilian Carswell, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
12. Otters might look soft and cuddly but remain dangerous wild animals. Otters have strong teeth and a powerful bite. So, whether you see an otter on land or at sea, be sure to maintain a safe distance of at least 5 kayak lengths or 60 feet from the otters. Learn more about staying safe around sea otters.
Charismatic otters are the largest members of the weasel family. Unlike other weasels, otters are semi-aquatic. Their sleek bodies range in size from 2 to 5.9 feet. Thirteen otter species slide down riverbanks, juggle rocks, and float on their backs in watersheds on five continents. The only places without endemic otters are Australia and Antarctica.
All otter species appear on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, and only one is listed as "least concern." Learn 15 more facts about these fascinating mammals.
River otters are frequently mistaken for sea otters. River otters live primarily in freshwater, though they do swim and hunt in seawater. They have visible ears, swim belly down, use webbed feet to paddle, and move swiftly on land and water.
Sea otters live exclusively in the ocean along coastlines. They move clumsily on land, paddle with their hind feet and tail, and are significantly bigger than most river otters, with some males weighing as much as 100 pounds. A male river otter, by comparison, would not exceed 30 pounds.
Otters For SaleSea otters, particularly mothers and pups, sometimes hold hands while floating on their backs. Hand-holding keeps the otters from drifting away from each other and their food source while they sleep. They also sleep wrapped in long strands of kelp like a blanket. The kelp acts like an anchor and prevents them from floating out to the open ocean. When a pup is small, the mother will hold it on her belly to keep it from floating away.
Of the 13 species of otter, IUCN lists five as endangered, five as near-threatened, and two as vulnerable. Only the North American river otter is a species of least concern.
Numerous threats to otters exist and primarily include pollution, habitat destruction, overfishing, and poaching. They can also be harmed by entanglement with ghost nets and other rogue fishing gear. Oceana reports, "It is thought that oil spills pose the greatest threat due to the proximity of sea otters to major tanker routes and their susceptibility to hypothermia if their fur comes into contact with oil."
A cat parasite called toxoplasmosis also poses a threat to these creatures. Found in cat feces, it enters waterways through runoff and flushable cat litter.
Baby otters usually are called pups. They can also be called kits or kittens. Female otters are sows, and males are boars.
Otter groups are called a family, bevy, lodge, or a romp. The latter is the most common term for a group of otters on land. A group of otters in the water is most often called a raft.
The giant otter is an endangered species found in South America, primarily along the Amazon river and the Pantanal. It is the longest of the otter species. Giant otters grow to as long as 6 feet and weigh as much as 75 pounds. They eat 9 pounds of food each day.
The giant otter is an endangered species found in South America, primarily along the Amazon river and the Pantanal. It is the longest of the otter species. Giant otters grow to as long as 6 feet and weigh as much as 75 pounds. They eat 9 pounds of food each day.
Poaching for their velvet-like fur caused significant population declines. Threats also include habitat degradation, pesticides, and pollution from mining. Experts estimate that fewer than 8,000 exist.
Hairy Nosed Otter with long white whiskers standing on the rocky side of a pool
Hairy-nosed otters are an endangered species found in Asia. They were considered extinct until 1998 when a scientist in Thailand found small populations. This rediscovery, after presumed extinction, makes them a Lazarus species.
The biggest threats to hairy-nosed otters are poaching and habitat loss from wildfires, dam construction, and clearing swamp forests for oil palm plantations and fish farms. These otters seem to love peat swamp forests, especially those with Melaleuca, the swamp tea-tree. Unfortunately the number of tea-trees is diminishing.
Most otters have sharp claws at the end of each toe, which helps them to grab prey. However, there are three species of otter that have blunt claws or none at all. They are the Asian small-clawed otter, African clawless otter, and Congo clawless otter. These otters also have less webbing between their digits. This combination allows them to have greater nimbleness when foraging. They use their front paws with a dexterity that nearly rivals humans.
Family of Eurasian river otters (Lutra lutra) sprainting on high point. The spraint is a method of marking territory and high points are a favoured location, even those washed by tides.
River otters perform "scat dances" by stomping their hind feet and lifting their tail. They then leave droppings called spraints, which refer to a single bowel evacuation and that researchers describe as smelling like violets.
Otters have a communal latrine area. There they exchange information via chemical cues in feces. Otters also excrete something called anal jelly that contains secretions from anal glands and shed intestinal linings.
Sea otters don't just have the densest fur of all otters—they have the densest fur of all animals. Otters have as many as 2.6 million hairs per square inch. That makes it about a thousand times more dense than human hair. That thick coat is needed because otters are the only marine mammal without a blubber layer for insulation. They rely on all that fur to trap a layer of air against the surface of their skin, and their fur is perfectly designed to do so because it's dense and spiky. The barbs on each hair strand hold in place the air bubbles that the otters blow into their pelts while grooming—which they can spend up to five hours doing each day.
.png)
0 Comments