When my children were small and we made weekly visits to the zoos in and around our state, they always made a beeline to the otters' hangouts, which were streams and other aquatic gymnasiums. They seemingly, to me, spent their days swimming, playing and eating raw fish. Not a bad way for homo sapiens to spend their days, either. Their family is the Lutrinae. Other members of this family are honey badgers (earthworm eating stink bombs, sorry badge). martens (cute tree huggers), minks (slinky minky), polecats (Polecats!) and wolverines (I thought they belonged to the woo-woo myths of gothic horror).
From Wiki, that know-it-all site:
An otter's den is called a holt or couch. Male otters are called dogs or boars, females are called bitches or sows, and their offspring are called pups. The collective nouns for otters are bevy, family, lodge, romp (being descriptive of their often playful nature) or, when in water, raft.
The feces of otters are typically identified by their distinctive aroma, the smell of which has been described as ranging from freshly mown hay to putrefied fish; these are known as spraints. (By any other name, they still stink.)
Until the next World Day catches my fancy,
Best to all,
Gerrie Ferris Finger
Author of twenty novels, seven in the Moriah Dru/Richard Lake Series.
Just out #7: WOLF'S CLOTHING
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