{"id":47547,"date":"2023-05-30T06:00:43","date_gmt":"2023-05-30T11:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/?p=47547"},"modified":"2023-05-10T14:59:32","modified_gmt":"2023-05-10T19:59:32","slug":"otterly-fabulous","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/otterly-fabulous\/","title":{"rendered":"Otterly Fabulous"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Otter – looking at the camera<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

You may recall that back in April we celebrated International Beaver Day.\u00a0 Well, now the otter gets its turn.\u00a0 May 31st<\/sup>, 2023 is World Otter Day.\u00a0 This holiday always falls on a Wednesday.\u00a0 So next year, 2024, it will fall on May 29th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n

There are thirteen different species of otter (Lontra canadensis):\u00a0 Sea Otter, North American River Otter, Eurasian Otter, Giant Otter, Asian Small-Clawed Otter, Smooth-Coated Otter, African Clawless Otter, Marine Otter, Neotropical Otter, Spotted-Necked Otter, Hairy-Nosed Otter, Southern River Otter, and Japanese Otter.<\/p>\n

The North American river otter\u2019s range includes the Quad-Cities, since they prefer water bordered by woods and wetlands.\u00a0 They are strong swimmers, using their long body and tail to slide through the water, paddling with their webbed hind feet. \u00a0River otters have a transparent inner eyelid (called a nictitating membrane) to protect their eyes while swimming.\u00a0 They can hold their breath for up to 8 minutes.\u00a0 They close their nostrils to keep water out during these long dives.<\/p>\n

They are considered a fur-bearing animal having the thickest fur of any mammal, with as many as 850,000 hairs per square inch.<\/p>\n

River otters are mostly nocturnal.\u00a0 They feed on crayfish, fish, other small mammals, and aquatic plants.\u00a0 They are social animals with groups consisting of a female and her juvenile offspring.<\/p>\n

These carnivorous mammals tend to weigh 11-30 pounds when fully grown. \u00a0\u00a0They live 8-9 years in the wild. \u00a0It is estimated that there are 100,000 North American river otters in the United States and Canada.<\/p>\n

Want to learn more?\u00a0 Check out the following juvenile titles:<\/p>\n

Sea otters, by Laura Marsh<\/a><\/u><\/p>\n

Otters under water, by Jim Arnosky<\/a><\/u><\/p>\n

The otter, by Bert Kitchen<\/a><\/u><\/p>\n

Sea Otter Heroes, by Patricia Newman<\/a><\/u><\/p>\n

Otters, by Jane and Doran Whitledge<\/a><\/u><\/p>\n

Odder, by Katherine Applegate<\/a><\/u><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You may recall that back in April we celebrated International Beaver Day.\u00a0 Well, now the otter gets its turn.\u00a0 May 31st, 2023 is World Otter Day.\u00a0 This holiday always falls on a Wednesday.\u00a0 So next year, 2024, it will fall on May 29th. There are thirteen different species of otter[Read more]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13],"tags":[324,6899,6898],"class_list":["post-47547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-you-can-use","tag-holidays","tag-north-american-river-otter","tag-otters"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd0CXx-cmT","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47547"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47547\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47735,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47547\/revisions\/47735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}