Hippo's Wild World of Animals - Random Animal Facts

That is true, people wouldn't know how to feel without the invisible guiding hand of a random letter grade or number based on very arbitrary criteria determined in a black box fashion. Still, I cannot guide my readers, my dim sheep, towards the right sentiment to leave with and must allow them to decide of their free will, even with what little they may have.

Seals and dolphins, I think I can squeeze those in.

As it stands, I have 15 weeks of content to write up so I will not be taking more requests until the queue is shorter. Seals was the last one, dolphins are on the subs bench with spotted hyenas and the line-up will be subject to change depending how interesting they are when I research them. Otters in general are this week.

You're the third to want the octopodes but I'm still limited to the eight legged weirdos of the underwater, no cuttlefish!

Give them a cuteness rating on a scale of zero to five hugs.

Pangolins, yes! Subs bench. If I wanted to grade on cuteness, i'd be the only one choosing as most of the queue so far isn't cute, 0 hugs for many. Tarsiers I might have briefly read as tapirs but okay, subs bench with both of them.

Main issue with the subs bench is you might not get picked.

Bats are upcoming.

Hi, this week's animal facts are on the otter, the first semi-aquatic animal on our list!

---

The otter, snake-cat of the waterways, mostly known for clams and swimming but what else do they do?


Our first mustelid, the lutrines as a collective, are present on five of the six continents of the world. Both "water" and "otter" share the same word root given their ties to water and any given otter will spend most of their time inside it and are considered a keystone species in the ecosystems they exist in. I'm splitting the otters into two groups; the freshwater river otters and the saltwater sea otters as though they're both ottery, they're also very different.

The river otters are common to both North America and Europe, have tails measuring upto a foot and a half and will mostly eat fish, not clams though occasional shellfish will find their way into the otter's diet. River otters tend to be comfortable both on land and in the water, just don't confuse them for beavers.


The sea otters meanwhile are an endangered species compared to the more prolific river otters. These guys can exist their entire lives without making landfall and are the ones who eat clams. They are one of the few species to use tools using rocks to both dislodge shellfish and other crustaceans from the ocean floor and to crack shells on their stomachs.


Unlike the river otters, their tails are not used for swimming, relying instead on webbed hind paws. Both though do have adaptations for underwater swimming; they can close their nostrils and ear canals, see and possibly smell underwater and most interestingly can change their bone density to affect their buoyancy.


There are smaller groups of otter besides sea and river: there's the hairy nosed otter whose numbers are estimated at less than 100 and are critically endangered in the wild; the smooth-coated otter which is mostly in southeastern Asia and the giant otter in Southern America. They are also endangered but grow upto 5'5" in length compared to the average otter which is usually three feet in length hence why they're giant.


Otters are indeed as playful as their reputation suggests, they're very social and a group of otters are often called a romp for this reason. Sea otters also tend to hold paws when sleeping in pairs and is known as a raft. A raft can often involve several otters linking together, sometimes upwards of 100 otters and will bind themselves with kelp in order to keep themselves in place sometimes when sleeping or eating.

---

As usual, we finish with some cute pics.

Great read, awesome photos. Seeing one hundred otters holding hands is now on my bucket list.

BTW, here's some additional otter facts for those further interested: news.discovery.com/animals/the-other-side-of-otters.htm

Well, that story made me sad.

Yep, I want it to be interesting but also cast a given animal in a positive light because it's about celebrating their good aspects, not going "oh, well this animal is a jerk because of this" and it's not fun to state why an animal sucks. Also, it made 🔪 silly buns sad.

They remind me occasionally of ferrets both being mustelids, ferrets have been called snake-cats, I have a gif of a cat swimming like an otter so "snake-cat of the waterways" it is.


River otters wouldn't have much use for tools and sea otters wouldn't need strong rudder-like tails to swim with, it'd be an interesting exchange anyway..


Depends on the group, if it's a big enough one then you'll see around 100 or more doing it but you're more likely to see anywhere between 10 and 40.

My favourite type of otter? River otter but I'm caught between plain old European River Otter and the Smooth-coated Otter, they have nice cat-like fur.

Behold your new god!

There are some in Iraq, that's true but I've not seen any of that specific group.

I'm grading them silently as A across the board.

Next week is bats so there'll be flying foxes and as such it'll be all about fruit bats. No goats, ever.

A across the board sounds about right  However, if I were to enter into the nasty business of grading Mother Nature's glorious creations just for a second, I'd have to bump the Sloth up to an A+, for a purely superficial reason; they make the bestest talk show guests   (animals graded by chat show appearance, well, there's a whole new level of awfulness *pats self on back*).


Fruit bats = Flying foxes. Vampire Bats = Goats?