Class-mammalia

Order- Carnivora

Family-Mustelidae

Genus-Lontra

Species-Lontra Canadensis

Habitat: River otters are usually found in Alaska, Canada, Pacific Northwest, Great Lakes, Atlantic Coast, and the Gulf of Mexico. Also Nebraska, New York, and Indiana are going to bring river otters into the states.

My animal eats carnivores, animals with shells, insects, frogs, fish, and also muskrats. They eat a lot of things. I think that their most popular food is fish. Maybe that’s what they eat the most.

Also, they breed in March and April. They are pregnant until the winter. Then they have their baby’s. When the baby’s are born, they don’t open up their eyes for about three weeks. So their mother has to help them because they are blind. After three weeks, they open their eyes and start learning what otters do. About after 12-13 weeks after training, they live on their own.

Actually the river otter disappeared from nine states. They are always by water. Also they live by water and wet land environments. But they are getting threatened and endangered.

River otters can grow very big, but they can stay small. The maximum length that they can grow to is 1.4 meters, and their maximum weight is 13.5 kg. I had no clue that they could grow that long. They eat a lot of things so I can see if they are over weight. But they also do a lot of work during the day!

The river otter has just a couple of pray. Their pray are wolves and coyotes. Mostly their enemies are humans. They are very afraid of us. But we aren’t afraid of them that much, but some people might be. I think that they are afraid of us because humans are in their faces.

They otters also live by easy access food places. But most of the river otters live in North America. When they go under water, they can hold their breath up to 8 minutes. They have dens that they live in. Sometimes, the river otters are smart. They just take other mammals dens.

Actually, the river otter is the most numerous otter species. They say that the otter was spotted in 200 b.c. to the 1400’s. The river otters once lived in North America. River otters also lived in coastal marshes.

Sometimes the Native Americans hunted for the river otters. I guess that they hunted too much! About 11 states in the 1980’s said that they had no river otters in them. But some studies have showed that some river otters came back.

The river otter’s babies are called kits. They are so cute when they are born. I loved researching river otters. I did not know about river otters at all. You should learn about them too!