These underwater acrobats love sliding down just for fun, they are playful and have a social behavior. They have evolved adaptations that help to inhabit the environments they live in.
Thermoregulation and Metabolic Rate: These aquatic mammals inhabit a range of habitats ranging from temperate to very cold environments. It is harder to conserve heat energy underwater as heat conductivity can be 27 times faster than in air.
Aquatic mammals will lose heat rapidly even in warm waters. Otters counteract this heat loss by evolving a having higher metabolic rate up to 50 percent higher compared with similar size land mammals.
A greater metabolic rate helps to conserve and produce more body heat. This also demands more calories so otters might need to regularly ingest food.
Embryo Diapause: These aquatic mammals also have a physiological adaptation that ensures the survival of their young ones. Even though otters mate in early spring, the embryos formed do not attach to the uterus for 8-9 months, instead, they are free-floating and lie dormant in the uterus.
This strategy of delayed implantation is referred to as embryo diapause. This occurs so that females will not have to nurse their young during winters. The gestation in otters lasts 60 days, and the young are born in the following March.
This phenomenon is also seen in several other animals like seals, bears, and armadillos, where the embryo implantation is delayed till conditions are favorable.
For instance, bears breed during early summer or late spring. The females spend most of their time trying to increase their body fat.
When the required body fat has been accumulated, she will retreat to her den and then the eggs will implant. This method increases the survival rate of both the young and their mother.
Scent Communication: They employ their scent glands to mark their home ranges. These scent glands can be found at their tail’s end region; they also deposit their scent on dung that is known as spraint. T
his spraint is deposited along the boundaries of their territories in less visible regions like on boulders. These deposits may be found 40-70 meters apart. Each scent is different and unique and is informative of the age, identity, and sex of the otter.
Other animals like West African Civet, rabbits, and hippopotamus also use dung to mark their marker posts. Male hippos may engage their tails to distribute their excrement.