Otters are truly delightful animals. They’re intelligent and very playful. Not only have they been seen playing with pebbles, but they’ll even do things like build a slide and then, whoosh, use it to get into the water, purely for the fun of it. They sleep on land, often in dens they’ve built but otherwise spend a lot of time in the water, swimming and looking for eats. With their long, thin bodies and small legs, otters can be thought of as large ferrets that behave like seals.
The small clawed otter is native to Southeast Asia, parts of Indonesia, and bits of China and India. One very distinctive thing about this species is its claws. As the name suggests, the claws are unusually short; they don’t even extend beyond the paw pads. Counterintuitively, this actually helps these otters when hunting down their next meal. Shorter claws means greater manual dexterity and that’s useful for an animal that loves eating crabs and mollusks and isn’t above dabbling with bird eggs, worms, and snakes. The small clawed otter is the smallest type of otter out there: even a big one weighs scarcely more than an ordinary house cat.
There’s no denying that an otter is a strange choice of pet. But there may be method to the madness. Most pet owners prize cuteness above all else. Others make intelligence a higher priority. A few are just determined to be different. Well, an otter certainly covers all of those bases! We just hope that this otter’s human parents have big yard with plenty of water.
Check out the video we’ve posted and you won’t be disappointed. This baby otter is cute, cute, cute. You’ll want to be sure to have the sound on so you don’t miss his little otter noises.
This baby otter is outrageously adorable, but would you ever seriously consider having an otter as a pet? Let us know in the Facebook comments. Be sure to like and share, even if it puts your friends at risk of wanting to get an otter of their own.
