Though they come from the same family and class, there are quite a few differences between the two of these sub-species. There are a few things that make an otter a unique animal.
Some of those unique characteristics are that they come from a family called Mustiledae, with thick furs that covers the body and an average weight of 30 kilograms.
Both the sea otter and river otter had actually been an endangered animal due to humans. Nowadays, they are protected in a few countries such as Canada.
These countries even go to the extent of building sanctuaries and clinics specifically to treat sea otters or river otters. One of the more common otters you could find are river otters. These kinds of otters are important in the ecosystem it lives in.
It plays a role to control the population of a certain animal that the otter preys upon. While playing their role in the environment, these animals are quite long-living animal and could live up to 25 years.
Same goes for the sea otters, the sea otters also play a great role in the environment. Sea otters have a key role to control population, specifically animals such as sea urchins and other invertebrates.
Sea otters have to prevent animals from destroying kelp forests. Amongst all of the similarities that describe this animal from the Mustelidae family, today we would focus more on the differences.
- Habitat
The name says it all right? Sea otters are obviously aquatic mammals. They would live in the northern Pacific seas, and they only live in shallow waters because they aren’t deep-sea creatures.
Contrary to sea otters, the river otters can be found in most parts of North America. They would inhabit aquatic habitats such as ponds, rivers, lakes and any watery place.
- Diet
Different habitats mean different food right? Well, that’s true, because the sea otters have a completely different choice of diet compared to river otters.
First of all, sea otters consume marine species such as clams, sea urchins, abalone, clams, snails, mussels and about 40 more of other aquatic species.
Sea otters are awesome swimmers, that is why they need lots of energy to keep them going every day. And within each day, they have to consume around 25% of their current weight to support their activities every day.
Secondly, let us talk about what river otters eat for food. River otters don’t have the same luxury as sea otters, and they only get to eat river species such as amphibians, frogs, crayfish and even turtles. They hunt at night and are considered as nocturnal animals too.
- Swimming skills
Now when it comes to swimming, they are both excellent swimmers and also land animals. But they also have different techniques to approach swimming.
For example, the sea otters love to swim upside down. This means that the sea otter would face up to the sky and swim with their backs to the water.
They would keep on floating while their tail swings from side to side to propel it across the sea. They are able to float due to the thick fur that is water-resistant.
Besides that, sea otters also have incredible lung capacity that could hold 2.5 times more than any other animals with the same size as the otter.
This is however different to the river otters. River otters love to swim face down and their body facing into the water. This is because river otters are not as experienced as sea otters.
River otters spend most of their life inland and only go to the waters to find prey. Hence, their swimming skills are not as great as the sea otters. Instead, river otters have great running speed and are considered as a fast-moving animal on land.
- Social behavior
Even though they are both otters, they have different ways to socialize with one another. The sea otters love to socialize with other sea otters.
That is why they live in huge colonies of otters. Although they hunt and forage alone, sea otters actually sleep together. One unique fact about sea otters is that this animal holds hands with other otters when they fall asleep.
Yes, that’s true, this animal sleeps in the middle of the ocean. One way to prevent itself from sinking is to hold hands with other otters and make a group with what is known as rafts.
One the other hand, river otters prefer to live by a smaller type of group. River otters are more of a closed family type of animal. This means that it is a monogamous animal and would only find one mate. It would, later on, reproduce and take care of only its family.
- Size
People often forget that physical characteristics may vary from one sub-species to another.
For sea otters, they are way larger in size compared to river otters. In certain regions, these sea otters would weigh from 20 to 25 kilograms. Sometimes it would even weigh up to 30 kilograms.
Different to river otters, the female otters would only weigh around 5 kilograms up to 10 kilograms. Different from the male river otters, they could reach a weight of up to around 15 kilograms.
That is all about today’s article. And to wrap it up, you might want to consider otters as pets. If you do, there are facts behind petting otters as pets. Also, make sure you learn the differences between otters and beavers.