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Fan Forum Legend
Joined: Feb 2009
Posts: 807,470
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Celebration Board anniversary - The Otters Corner #30
WELCOME
TO THE OTTERS CORNER
 OTTERS FACTS
Sea otters hold hands when they sleep.
Occasionally, sea otters sleep on the water by floating on their backs. To avoid floating away in the vast seas, they hold each other’s front paws as they sleep. Although they don’t always partake in this behavior, this is one of the most well-known and adorable otter facts out there
They groom their fur a lot.
Otters take hygiene very seriously.
Their fur serves a lot of important functions and therefore requires a lot of maintenance. If their fur gets dirty, it can affect their ability to float and regulate their body heat. Therefore, it’s important for otters to regularly groom their fur. Otters have loose skin and quite flexible bodies and have the ability to reach and groom fur from every part of the body.
Baby otters can float but can’t swim.
As marine mammals, sea otters can spend their whole lives without touching dry land. They typically give birth in the water, usually producing a single baby otter or pup. Unlike other species, sea otter pups have dense fur, teeth, and developed eyes at birth.
Although pups can float, they don’t instinctively know how to swim and have to rely on their mothers for around six months up to a year. Mothers would carry their pups on their stomachs and teach them important survival skills such as swimming, hunting, and cracking open shells.
Otters are social animals.
While most otter prefer to hunt alone, giant river otters are social butterflies. These animals hunt in packs and live in groups of extended families.
Sea otter mating rituals can sometimes be lethal.
Although sea otters look innocent and adorable, their mating habits can sometimes be devious and deadly.
They’re adapted to hunt in the water.
Otters have webbed feet and are strong swimmers adapted to hunting in the water. These animals can maneuver with great agility in the water by using their muscular tails as rudders. When diving, otters can also close their ears and nostrils to prevent water from getting in. In terms of hunting, otters often ambush their prey, but they can also chase them for a sustained period of time.
Additionally, otters are quite agile and fast in the water. Giant river otters can reach a top swimming speed of 8.7 mph (14 km/h), which almost twice as fast as the fastest human swimmer, Michael Phelps! How’s that for neat otter facts?
Otters can hold their breaths for a long time.
Given that otters hunt in the water, it’s not surprising that they have special adaptations for aquatic life. That said, inning against an otter in a breath-holding contest would be no easy feat, because sea otters can hold their breath for up to 5 minutes. River otters, on the other hand, can hold their breath for up to a whopping 8 minutes. The lung capacity of otters is around 2.5 times greater than any mammal of similar sizes.
They can smell underwater.
Otters have a good sense of smell, and one of the more interesting otter facts is that they actually are capable of smelling things underwater. This is quite a unique adaptation because smelling things underwater for most mammals can only result in inhaling water, which puts them at risk of drowning. Even large marine mammals like whales and seals don’t rely on their sense of smell underwater.
Surprisingly, some otters can smell their prey as they swim. They do so by exhaling air bubbles from their noses, capturing the smell inside the air bubbles, and quickly inhaling them again.
Otters are playful.
Like humans, dolphins, crows, and dogs, otters also engage in play. Otters usually fool around for enjoyment and socializing with other otters. Many have observed otters making waterslides and also sliding on land.
They use tools.
Relatively few animals can use tools to get by, but otters make the cut.
Otters can store items under their arms.
In addition to their tool use, they also can keep their rocks for convenience. Otters have a loose patch of skin underneath their armpits that act as pockets for storage. This allows them to store food and even their prized rocks for safekeeping. Interestingly, some otters may even use the same rock throughout their whole lives.
Otters can snuggle.
This is another one of those otter facts that are just too cute to miss. Smooth coated otters often rub their bodies against one another, often in pairs or groups. This full-body contact, not unlike what we call snuggling, strengthens their social bonds and also refreshes their thick coats.
Some otters mate for life.
Some pairs of river otters stay monogamous and may sometimes mate for life. Some remain monogamous only in the breeding season. That said, other species such as the North American river otters are strictly polygynous.
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Kind heart, fierce mind, and a brave spirit
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