96 Fun Facts About Otter Trivia for Kids

Otters belong to the same animal family as which of these?

Weasels and badgers share the otter's family, the mustelids, which is why an otter has the same long, bendy body and short legs; the sea otter is the heaviest member of the whole family.

What is special about an otter's feet that helps it swim?

They are webbed: skin stretched between the toes turns each foot into a paddle, and the otter's long, muscular tail helps to drive it along and steer.

Kelp, which grows in underwater forests where sea otters live, is a giant kind of what?

Seaweed is right: kelp is a giant brown one that grows into towering underwater forests, and sea otters guard those forests by eating the sea urchins that would chew them down.

What must a river otter mother do to get her pups swimming?

Push them in: at about two months old the pups get their first swimming lesson when mum shoves or drags them into the water, yet otters are natural swimmers and they soon get the hang of it.

An otter's home, dug under tree roots or rocks, is called what?

A holt is an otter's den, while a lodge belongs to a beaver and a sett to a badger; one otter may keep several resting places along its river and move between them.

Which pets' droppings carry Toxoplasma, a parasite that washes into the sea and kills sea otters?

Cats are the only animals that pass Toxoplasma's eggs in their droppings, so cat owners are urged to put used litter in the bin and never flush it down the toilet.

Which of these do otters seem to do just for fun?

Slide down mud into the water: river otters also toboggan down snowy banks, and although it doubles as a quick way to travel, many people who study them call it play.

What do river otters do when winter freezes their river?

Hunt under the ice: river otters stay busy all winter, slipping in through cracks and holes in the ice to chase their prey and coming back up at the same gaps to breathe.

Seals and whales keep warm with a thick layer of what, which sea otters lack?

Blubber is the fatty layer that keeps seals and whales warm; a sea otter has none, which is why its fur has to be the thickest of any animal on Earth.

What tool does a sea otter most often use to crack open shellfish?

A rock balanced on its chest works as an anvil: the otter bangs a clam against it until the shell cracks, which makes sea otters one of the very few mammals that use tools.

Where does a diving sea otter stash the food it collects?

In a pouch of skin under its arm: loose skin forms a pocket beneath each foreleg, so the otter can tuck away one clam and carry on hunting for the next before it surfaces.

How does a resting sea otter avoid drifting out to sea?

It wraps up in kelp, which is anchored to the seabed and works like a mooring rope; mothers tie up their pups the same way before diving for food.

How does a sea otter eat its dinner?

Floating on its back, a sea otter uses its chest as a table, then rolls over again and again to rinse the scraps out of its fur.

Eating lots of sea urchins can turn a sea otter's teeth and bones what colour?

Purple pigment from the urchins soaks into the otter's teeth and even its bones; to eat one, it bites through the underside, where the spines are shortest, and licks out the inside.

Why must a sea otter eat about a quarter of its own weight every day?

To stay warm in cold water, a sea otter's body burns through food at a furious rate; a grown person with the same appetite would have to eat about 16 kilograms of food every day.

Why can't a newborn sea otter pup dive underwater?

Its fluffy fur makes it float like a cork: the baby coat holds so much air that the pup cannot sink, and it only starts diving once sleeker grown-up fur replaces it about three months later.

What does a sea otter pup sound like when it cries for its mother?

A seagull's screech is what the pup's cry is usually compared to; mum leaves it floating at the surface while she dives for food, and it squeals until she comes back.

A big male sea otter weighs about as much as which of these?

A 12-year-old is about right: big males reach 45 kilograms, which makes sea otters the heaviest of all otters yet still some of the smallest mammals that live in the sea.

The 1911 treaty that ended sea otter hunting was written mainly to protect which other animals?

Fur seals were the main worry of the four nations that signed the 1911 treaty, but its hunting ban covered sea otters too, and only just in time: fewer than a couple of thousand were left.

A famous video of two sea otters holding paws was filmed in which city's aquarium?

Vancouver Aquarium visitor Cynthia Holmes filmed otters Nyac and Milo drifting along paw in paw, and once the clip went online in 2007 it became YouTube's most-watched animal video of its day.

Which ocean do sea otters live in?

The Pacific is the only ocean with sea otters: they once lived in an unbroken arc from Asia round to Mexico, until fur hunters emptied most of that coast.

How long can a sea otter hold its breath at most?

About five minutes is the limit, but a sea otter rarely needs it: most of its hunting dives to the seabed are over in about a minute.

Which of these continents has no wild otters at all?

Australia has no wild otters, and neither does Antarctica; its rivers have the rakali instead, a native water rat sometimes nicknamed the 'Australian otter'.

Along which great river do most giant otters live?

The Amazon and its side rivers hold most of the world's giant otters; hunters killed so many for their velvety fur in the 1950s and 1960s that the species vanished from much of South America.

What is a male otter called?

A male otter is called a dog, just as a male fox is; a female otter is called a sow.

North American river otters use their long whiskers for what?

Feeling for fish in dark water is the whiskers' job: the long, stiff hairs pick up the movements of prey, a big help when the river is cloudy or the light is poor.

What protects a river otter's eyes when it swims underwater?

A see-through inner eyelid, the nictitating membrane, slides across each eye as the otter dives, shielding it while still letting the otter see where it is going.

Where does one tunnel of a river otter's den usually lead?

Straight into the water: a river otter's den has several tunnels, and one often opens below the surface, so the otter can swim straight in and out of its home.

About how long can a North American river otter stay underwater on one breath?

Eight minutes is about as long as a river otter can stay under on one breath, and its bendy body lets it make sharp, sudden turns to catch a fleeing fish.

Which country's word for otter is 'kawauso'?

Japan's word for otter is kawauso, and in old Japanese folk tales the kawauso is a trickster that changes its shape to fool people, much as foxes and tanuki do.

Villagers in Bangladesh have long trained otters to help them do what?

Catch fish: the otters chase shoals into the fishermen's nets, a skill handed from father to son that now survives in only a few river villages.

Why do Eurasian otters leave their droppings, called spraints, on rocks?

To mark their territory: the smell of a spraint tells other otters who lives on that stretch of river, so each otter leaves them out in the open where passers-by cannot miss them.

Tarka the Otter, the famous 1927 book, is set in the rivers of which English county?

Devon's rivers Taw and Torridge are Tarka's home in Henry Williamson's novel, and a railway, the Tarka Line, and a 180-mile walking and cycling trail there now carry his name.

Ring of Bright Water is about a man who kept wild otters at a remote house in which country?

Gavin Maxwell kept his otters at Camusfeàrna, his remote house on the west coast of Scotland; the 1960 book sold over two million copies and became a film in 1969.

Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas is a 1977 TV special made by which famous puppeteer?

Jim Henson's company made Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas in 1977, with Kermit the Frog introducing the story of Emmet and his Ma, who both enter a talent contest to buy each other a present.

In the 1970s, scientists compared islands with and without sea otters to show how they protect kelp, in which US state?

The classic 1970s study compared islands in Alaska's Aleutian chain: where otters had vanished, urchins grazed the seabed down to bare rock, and where otters lived, kelp forests thrived.

Sea otter babies are usually born where?

In the water, which makes sea otters the only otters that never need dry land to give birth; even seals have to haul out onto a beach or the ice to have their pups.

Why do sea otters find walking on land so awkward?

Their back feet are shaped for swimming: long, flat and flipper-like, with the outside toe the longest, they are clumsy on a beach, so a sea otter seldom strays more than a few steps from the water.

In the Harry Potter stories, whose Patronus takes the shape of an otter?

Hermione Granger's guardian Patronus is an otter, a fitting choice for a clever, quick character, and the otter also happens to be author J.K. Rowling's favourite animal.

Newborn river otter pups have fur but are born without the use of which sense?

Sight comes late: a river otter pup's eyes stay shut for about its first month, so it lies helpless in the den while its mother feeds and guards it.

What do otters line their den with to make it cosy?

Moss and grass make a soft, dry bed for the den, which matters because newborn pups are helpless and spend their first weeks tucked up inside it.

Which Water-type starter is officially known as the Sea Otter Pokémon?

Oshawott is the Sea Otter Pokémon, a Water-type starter from the Unova region; it fights with its scalchop, the shell on its belly, which it pulls off and swings like a blade.

What do river otters mostly do when they are not hunting or travelling?

They spend time on land, resting in dens or on the bank so their fur can dry out and keep its layer of air; sea otters do the opposite and hardly ever leave the water.

What is the top, water-shedding layer of an otter's fur called?

Guard hairs form the long outer coat that sheds water, while the dense underfur beneath traps air to keep the otter warm and dry.

What do otters do for hours every day to keep their fur working properly?

Otters groom it for hours every day, rubbing the fur and blowing air into it so it stays fluffy and keeps trapping the layer of air that holds in their body heat.

In a legend about Saint Cuthbert, what did two otters do after he prayed all night in the sea?

Dried his feet, in the monk Bede's telling: two otters followed Cuthbert up the beach, breathed on his feet to warm them and rubbed them dry with their fur, then went back to the sea once he had blessed them.

The word 'otter' shares its ancient root with 'water' and with which Greek monster's name?

The Hydra, the many-headed water snake that Hercules fought, takes its name from the same ancient root as 'water' and 'otter', so an otter is, by name, simply a water animal.

What are a sea otter's flat back teeth for?

Crushing shells: most of a sea otter's 32 teeth are flat, rounded molars made for cracking and grinding, not for cutting meat as most hunters' teeth are.

A sea otter's top speed underwater is about as fast as a person doing what?

Jogging pace, about 9 km/h, is as fast as a sea otter goes underwater; it gets there by flexing its whole body and tail up and down.

Which of these can a sea otter do that most other sea mammals cannot?

Sea otters can drink salty seawater: their extra-large kidneys pull fresh water out of the salt, although they get most of the water they need from their food.

Which two body parts can a sea otter shut tight when it dives?

Its nostrils and ears seal shut the moment it dives, keeping water out on hunting trips that can take it almost 100 metres down.

Roughly how many hairs grow on one square inch of a sea otter's thickest fur?

1,000,000 hairs can crowd into one square inch, more than most people have on their whole head; the coat is so dense that water never reaches a healthy sea otter's skin.

What first did Seattle Aquarium achieve with sea otters in 1979?

Raised a pup from birth to adulthood: Tichuk, born at the aquarium in 1979, was the first, and ten more pups followed before US zoos stopped breeding sea otters to leave room for rescued orphans.

The biggest group of sea otters ever seen resting together held roughly how many animals?

2,000 or more sea otters have been counted floating together in one place in the far north, though a normal group holds 10 to 100; each animal still dives for its own dinner.

Which shellfish clings on so hard that a sea otter may need several dives to bash it loose?

Abalone hold on so hard that a sea otter batters the shell with rapid blows, often over several dives, to free one; a pup picks up the knack by copying its mother.

Sea otters mostly eat small shellfish, but which big animal is also on their menu?

Giant octopus is the biggest item on a menu of over 100 kinds of prey, yet each sea otter sticks to just a few favourites, which may stop neighbours competing for the same food.

In California, which predator kills more sea otters than any other?

Great white sharks are the top killer of California's sea otters, yet they do not eat them: a shark seems to mistake an otter for a seal, takes one bite and swims off.

Why is spilled oil so deadly for a sea otter?

Oily fur stops trapping air, so it freezes: oil mats the hairs flat and lets icy water reach the skin, and any oil the otter swallows poisons it as well.

Nyac, the lighter otter in the famous paw-holding video, had survived what as a youngster?

An oil spill: Nyac was rescued as a pup from the Exxon Valdez disaster of 1989 and became one of its last surviving otters, living to about 20 in an aquarium.

Where does a sea otter pup ride while its mother floats along?

On her chest is where a pup spends much of its first months, held clear of the cold water, and there it nurses on milk so rich that about a quarter of it is fat.

Long ago, sea otters were sometimes called by which other animal's name?

Sea beaver was an old name for the sea otter, though the two are not close relatives at all: a beaver is a plant-eating rodent, while the sea otter is a hunter of shellfish.

Because they sold for so much in China, sea otter pelts earned which nickname?

Fur traders called sea otter pelts 'soft gold'; by 1903 a single pelt could fetch $1,125 in London, which is why so few otters were left when the hunting stopped.

Which famous British explorer bought sea otter furs on Canada's west coast in 1778?

Captain James Cook's crew bought sea otter furs at Nootka Sound in 1778; when the ships reached China the furs sold for so much that traders from all over the world rushed to the same coast.

In 1938 about 50 sea otters, thought wiped out in California, were found hiding off which coast?

Big Sur's rugged cliffs had hidden the little colony from fur hunters until a couple testing a telescope spotted it near Bixby Creek Bridge; every sea otter in California today descends from that group.

How do giant otters usually live?

In big family groups, usually of three to eight: a breeding pair and their young from several years hunt and rest together, and they fiercely defend their stretch of river against other otters.

Why do keepers wear masks around orphaned sea otter pups?

So the pups don't get used to humans: keepers at California's Monterey Bay Aquarium hide under dark gowns and masks, then hand each orphan to a foster otter mother who teaches it to dive and find food.

A sea otter catches its prey underwater using what?

Its front paws do the catching, where river otters seize prey in their teeth; the same nimble paws then twist and pull the catch apart.

Which popular Japanese web manga has a sea otter character called Rakko?

Chiikawa's Rakko, whose name is simply Japanese for sea otter, is the web manga's toughest monster fighter: a scarred hero in a cape with a secret soft spot for desserts.

Scientists suspect which predators of eating thousands of sea otters in the Aleutian Islands since the 1990s?

Killer whales are the chief suspects: Aleutian sea otter numbers crashed to about 6,000 by 2000, perhaps because the whales' usual prey of seals and sea lions had grown scarce.

In 2012 a river otter nicknamed Sutro Sam surprised everyone by moving into which US city?

San Francisco had not seen a river otter in at least half a century when Sutro Sam moved into the ruined Sutro Baths, where he feasted on overgrown goldfish that people had dumped in the pool.

Where does a mother river otter usually find a den to have her babies?

In a burrow another animal dug, often an old beaver lodge: river otters rarely dig for themselves, so a mother simply moves into a ready-made home by the water.

The giant otter's genus name Pteronura describes its tail as being like a what?

Wing: Pteronura joins the Greek words for wing and tail, because the giant otter's tail is flattened like a blade, a shape that helps to drive and steer it through the water.

Which of these is a real kind of otter?

Hairy-nosed otter is the real one: fur covers the nose pad that is bare in most otters, and it is one of the rarest otters because its swamp forests are being cleared and poachers hunt it for its skin.

As of 2025, which US west coast state has no resident sea otters?

Oregon's last native sea otter was probably shot in 1906, and the dozens flown in from the north in the early 1970s soon vanished, so today only the odd wanderer turns up.

How can scientists tell one giant otter from another from the day it is born?

Cream markings on its throat are unique to each giant otter, like a fingerprint; the rest of its coat is short, velvety and chocolate brown, a fur so prized that hunters nearly wiped the species out.

Which fearsome fish is regularly on the giant otter's menu?

Piranha are regular prey for giant otters, which live almost entirely on fish; when fish run short they will even take snakes and small caimans.

A giant otter grows about as long as what?

A tall man is about right: a giant otter can reach 1.8 metres from nose to tail tip, the longest of all otters, and at that size a grown one has few natural enemies apart from people.

Why do clever small-clawed otters in zoos leave shellfish lying in the sun?

The heat makes the shells open by themselves, which saves the otter the hard work of breaking into them one by one.

In which city have wild otters learned to use staircases to climb out of concrete canals?

Singapore's smooth-coated otters use stairs and ladders to get in and out of the city's canals, and families such as the Bishan otters have become local celebrities.

When a smooth-coated otter family hunts together, what formation do they swim in?

A V-shaped line, with the biggest otters in the middle: the family sweeps up a creek together, and panicking fish leap out of the water ahead of them and are snapped up.

Gavin Maxwell's famous pet otter Mijbil came from the marshes of which country?

Mijbil came from the marshes of southern Iraq, near the Tigris; he turned out to be a kind of smooth-coated otter unknown to science, so it was named Maxwell's otter.

In 2011, Eurasian otters were announced to be back in every county of which country?

England's otters had vanished from all but the West Country and parts of the north after farm chemicals poisoned the rivers; a ban on the worst ones let them spread back to every county by 2011.

In southern Spain, Eurasian otters have been found living in lakes on what kind of place?

Golf courses in Andalusia have otters living in their man-made lakes: any unpolluted fresh water with enough fish will do, which helps to make this the most widespread otter in the world.

The African clawless otter uses its nimble fingers mainly to catch which food?

Crabs top the menu of the African clawless otter, which hunts by touch with its sensitive, clawless fingers rather than snapping prey up in its jaws as fish-eating otters do.

The spotted-necked otter of Africa is common in which huge lake?

Lake Victoria is a stronghold of the spotted-necked otter, which hunts there by eye in clear water with quick dives of under 20 seconds and never ventures into the sea.

In 2012 the Japanese river otter was officially declared what?

Extinct was the official verdict from Japan's environment ministry in August 2012: no one had confirmed a sighting since 1979, when one was photographed at a river mouth in Kochi Prefecture.

In 2023 a wild sea otter known as 841 became famous in California for stealing what?

Surfboards: otter 841 kept climbing onto surfers' boards off Santa Cruz and biting them, and the wildlife officers sent to catch her failed again and again.

Which word is used for a group of otters?

A romp is the word, and a fitting one, since to romp means to play in a rough, lively way, which is just what a gang of otters seems to do.

What mark did one of Gavin Maxwell's otters leave on his handwritten Ring of Bright Water?

An inky footprint, left by an otter on volume three, still marks the manuscript; Maxwell wrote the whole book by hand with a fountain pen, much of it outdoors beside a waterfall.

In The Wind in the Willows, what is the name of Otter's young son?

Portly, Otter's little son, goes missing; Rat and Mole search the river all night and find him asleep at the feet of the god Pan.

Which of the otter's close relatives has been tamed as a pet?

The ferret is the only one of the otter's relatives that people have truly domesticated; it was most likely bred from the wild polecat and was long used to chase rabbits out of their burrows.

On a hot day, how does a floating sea otter cool off?

A hot sea otter holds its back feet underwater to shed heat; on cold days it does the opposite, lifting them clear of the water or folding all four limbs onto its body to keep warm.

In the 1960s hundreds of sea otters were moved off Amchitka Island to escape what?

Nuclear bomb tests were planned under the island, so the US atomic agency agreed to have hundreds of otters moved first; the 59 released off Washington had grown to almost 2,800 by 2019.

What colour is most sea otters' fur?

Deep brown with silvery speckles is the usual coat, and it is never thin: a sea otter replaces its fur a few hairs at a time all year round instead of moulting in one season.

Who gave the sea otter its first official scientific name in 1758?

Carl Linnaeus listed it in 1758 as Mustela lutris; the first naturalist to describe it, Georg Steller, had been shipwrecked on Bering Island in 1741, where the crew hunted sea otters to survive the winter.

Which bird of prey is a major hunter of sea otter pups in the far north?

Bald eagles are a significant predator of young sea otters there, though a healthy adult has little to fear from them: grown otters have very few natural enemies.