There is so much more to sea otters than being ridiculously cute. They are regarded as key stone species in their ecosystem – ecosystem engineers. Sea otters eat sea urchins, which help the underwater kelp forests to flourish.
They look almost comical when their faces are bobbing up and down in the waters. They love lying on their back with their hind feet pointing toward the sky.
Their fur is the densest of any animal. In contrast to other marine mammals, such as seals, whales, and walruses they lack blubber to keep them warm. Blubber is a thick layer of fat, instead, sea otters have to keep their thick fur in perfect condition and also eat a lot to keep warm. When they are not eating or sleeping, sea otters groom themselves more or less all the time. Oil spills can seriously affect sea otters since the oil coating their fur can lead to them freezing to death.
Sea otters use tools! They keep a rock in a “secret” pocket in their armpit. They use the stone to crack open mussels and sea urchins. Some amazing research into sea otters use of tools has shown that most sea otters studied were right-handed!
In this video, you can learn more about their eyesight. It seems like sea otters have “swim goggles” to help them see clearly underwater! You can also learn about what colours they can see!
Inspired by Carla Sonheim we used watercolours to do some notetakings about sea otters, see the featured pictured. We used the video below to help us draw a sea otter. This video was rather detailed and below is another video about how to draw sea otters. Sea otters can often been seen holding hands! Sea otters are famous for many charming behaviors, including floating on their backs and waving their paws and holding hands while sleeping!
Biomimicry for Young Children 