Otters are intelligent mammals that know how to use tools to find food, gregarious characteristics and extremely adorable habits. Let's join Top10suthat.net to discover interesting facts about this animal!
General information, characteristics of the Otter species
The otter (scientific name: Lutrinae) is a species of aquatic or oceanic carnivorous mammal in the family Mustelidae.
Otter identification features:
Otters have a thick inner coat (1,000 hairs per mm²), protected by an outer coat that keeps them warm and water-resistant.
The body is long, thin, elongated, flexible and supple.
The legs are short and webbed. Many have sharp claws to catch prey. Otters usually live in shallow water with a lot of algae, algae or food.
Taxonomy: Otters include river otters (North America), sea otters (along the Pacific coast of North America) and large otters (Pteronura brasiliensis) that live mainly in South America, especially on Amazon River region.
Otter food: The main food of otters is fish, shrimp, oysters… sometimes even birds.
Interesting facts about Otters:
1. Otters are very spontaneous and fearless, once angry, they do not care about the consequences.
2. Otters are pack animals. When a baby otter is born, the mother otter carries the baby around the school for the members of the group to meet.
3. Also the story of the baby otters, but when in danger, the mothers do not hesitate to bring the baby otters as cannon fodder.
4. Otters have a habit of holding hands while sleeping to avoid drifting too far. If there are no friends to hold hands with, they will wrap themselves in moss to keep themselves from being swept away by the waves.
5. Otters are very smart animals and know how to use rocks to break shells (1 favorite food of Otters). This is a skill that requires thinking, which is very rare in animals. Because of the reason he likes to eat seafood with hard shells like crabs and oysters, the skin under the armpits of the Otter is always clamped with a stone.
6. Newborn otters can swim, but their fur makes them only able to swim on the surface of the water. For this reason, mother otters often leave their young on their stomachs.
7. Otters do not have hair on their palms, so when they feel cold, they will put their hands on the area around the eyes (because this area is very warm).
8. The otter's sex life is very "violent". Every time in estrus season, the male otter will be very aggressive. Some males approach the female from behind, grabbing the target with both feet and biting the nose or side of the face. The two will swim together in the water for about 10-30 minutes. In this position of the female otters, the bite causes lacerations, injuries… But more bitterly, all males have the habit of biting this place when mating. That's why in some cases female otters can die from their injuries due to repeated bites.
And finally: Due to the high demand for otters' fur, they nearly became extinct in the late 1800s and early 1900s, reducing their numbers to between 1,000 and 2,000 worldwide. However, in 1911, the Marine Animal Feathers Treaty banned the trade in sea otters. Several countries have now listed the species as protected animals and established complete sanctuaries to care for injured and sick animals.
