Sea Otters (Enhydra lutris kenyoni ) belong to the weasel family and are one of the smallest marine mammals in the animal kingdom. They spend their mornings foraging and feeding on shellfish and afternoons resting by floating on their backs. Sea otters are coastal, shallow water dwellers. Their habitat consists of two areas in these waters- the ocean floor where they find their food, and the ocean surface where they eat, groom, rest and social interactions occur.
In this video, a pair of sea otters in Vancouver Aquarium, Nyac and Milo, share a lazy afternoon nap oblivious to the stares and chatterings of humans around their enclosure. Watch the video to see why it is the most popular youtube video having had 10,229,379 views to date. Make sure you watch it till the end where the good part is!
As sea otters are social creatures, they often live in groups although they do occasionally engage in solitary behavior such as foraging for food alone. When resting, sea otters often gather and hold hands. This is known as rafting. Rafting ensures that no sea otter drifts away during one of their afternoon naps. Sea otters usually raft with otters of the same sex with male otters forming the larger rafts. In this video however, the sea otters are a male-female pair. This could be due to the small otter population at the Vancouver Aquarium.
Rafting might also have an evolutionary purpose. "Garshelis et al. (1984) provided evidence that a historic land predator, perhaps aboriginal man, may have influenced the social behavior of sea otters. The tendency to rest away from the shore would also have provided protection from a land-based predator. "
So is the video clip above true love or just an evolutionary behavior? That's for you to decide.
References
1. The Alaska Sea Otter and Steller Sea Lion Commission , accessed on 20th March 2008
2.Garshelis, D.L. and J.A. Garshelis. 1984. Movements and management of sea otters in Alaska.Journal of Wildlife Management 48: 665-678.
3. Loughlin, T.R (1980) Home Range and Territoriality of Sea Otters Near Monterey, California. The Journal of Wildlife Management, Vol. 44, No. 3 , pp. 576-582
4. http://www.vanaqua.org/home/SeaOtterRafting.html, accessed on 20th March 2008
5. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epUk3T2Kfno, accessed on 20th March 2008