Interesting Facts about Sea Otters
Interesting Facts about Sea Otters
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Found along the coasts of the Pacific Ocean in North America and Asia, the sea otter is the only otter to give birth in the water. They clean themselves after eating; they wash themselves in the ocean and clean their coat with their teeth and paws. Indigenous islanders used powdered sea otter baculum as a medicine for fever. Their coat provides them waterproofing and insulation against the cold. They have 1.6 to 2.6 million hairs per square cm of their fur. This makes their coat of fur the thickest in the animal kingdom. |
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Indigenous tribes used to give sea otter pelts in potlatches to mark coming-of-age ceremonies, weddings, and funerals.
Sea otter bones for use as ornaments and in games.
Sea otters are sometimes seen resting in a single-sex group, which is known as a raft. Normally a raft would have 10 to 100 individuals, with largest record fo 2000 individuals in a raft.
Mother otters feed their children while floating on their backs and holding the infants on their chest to nurse them.
They are sometimes teferred to as 'old man of the sea'.
Did you know that sea otters will sometimes place a rock on their chest while floating on their back? They repeatedly smash shellfish against the rock to open its shell in order to reveal the tasty meal.
They have been observed placing their food on their chests and savoring it bite by bite, while floating on their back.
They have excellent metabolic rates.
A sea otter must eat 25 to 38 percent of its own body weight in order to counteract the loss of heat due to the cold environment.
Sea otters normally give birth to a single individual. Very rarely a mother will produce twins.
Among the indigenous cultures, it is portrayed as an occasional messenger between humans and the creator.
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