Giant Otter
(Pteronura
brasiliensis)
The posts this week are brief overviews of EACH of the
otter species,
focusing on recent information about each species and a
vid or 2...
The Giant Otter is the largest (lengthwise) and oldest (evolutionarily) otter living today.
 From nose to tail, Giant Otters can be up to 6ft long! Their tails are flattened and flanged, and very strong. Their ears are comparably small, and their eyes very large. Giant Otters are at the top of their food chain. They eat fish, small caiman (basically alligators), crustaceans, snakes, and birds. Giant Otters are incredibly sociable, and often hunt in groups. They live in family groups of ten or more, sometimes up to twenty otters! |
The Giant otter range (the area in which the Giant Otter lives) is the central area of South America, especially around the Amazon River Basin and the Pantanal Region.
There are loads of great YouTube videos of Giant Otters out there, but here are a few that we really enjoyed...
Giant Otter hunting...
Giant Otters and a Caiman...
If you want more in-depth reading a few research articles you could explore on these otters includes:
RSA Pickles, JJ Groombridge, VDZ Rojas… - … Genetics, 2012 - Springer
> Conservation genetics of the giant otter (Pteronura brasiliensis (Zimmerman, 1780))(Carnivora, Mustelidae),DM Garcia, M Marmontel, FW Rosas… - Brazilian Journal of …, 2007 - SciELO Brasil> Social organization and territoriality of giant otters (Carnivora: Mustelidae) in a seasonally flooded savanna in Brazil,C Leuchtenberger, G Mourão - Sociobiology, 2008 -
That's one bad-ass otter! I bet caiman tastes just like chicken!
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