Читать книгу Nature’s Babies - Mike Dilger - Страница 8

Unlike seals and dolphins, our smallest marine mammal has no blubber. This means that adult sea otters have to spend up to three hours a day grooming their fur meticulously to ensure that it stays in top condition and remains able to trap the vital insulating layer of air which keeps them warm.

When they are not busy grooming themselves, sea otters spend a large part of the day hunting for food. From depths of up to 40 m (131 ft) they retrieve clams and sea urchins from among the rich kelp forests on the sea floor and bring these up to the surface. The sea otter is an animal which likes to spend a large part of its life belly up, even when feeding. Lying on its back, it uses its underside as a table to crack open these tough shells with the help of a special stone which it retrieves from a ‘waistcoat pocket’ situated under its armpit.

Although the birth of the single pup takes place on shore, the mother immediately guides it straight into the water. Despite being born with its eyes open, and with a full set of milk-teeth and baby fur, the sea otter pup is initially very vulnerable to the cold, and so it spends the first four weeks of its life being groomed and fed on its mother’s belly. When the mother does have to leave her pup on the surface whilst diving for food, she often wraps her youngster up in kelp to prevent it drifting off. As the pup’s fur traps so much air, it bobs on the surface like a cork until its mother comes back to retrieve it!

Sea otter

© Mark Newman/FLPA

Baby sea otters spend much of their first year of life on their mother’s belly, where they are groomed, fed and kept warm.