Otters!

The otter project was very different from the herps project. We spent most of our time on or near the river hoping to see a glimpse of two types of otters: neotropical and giant otters. Miguel Rico Barroeta, shown here on the left, was the principal investigator.

Neotropical otters' scientific name is Lontra longicaudis because "Lontra" is the genus name for otter, and the species name "longicaudis" means "long tail." Since we were unable to get any footage of them, the picture on the left is from the Earthwatch website. They are found in Central and South America and tend to be solitary creatures. There is not enough data on the neotropical otters to know whether they are a threatened species or not, which highlights the importance of this research.

Giant otters tend to travel in families, and each one has a unique throat marking that researchers use to identify individuals. To do so, scientists must draw the throat markings by copying digital pictures or video. Here are some of my drawings that the researchers will be using. I was hoping to make my visual arts students proud! (C'mon, they have to be better than my drawings in class!)

We also found some "campsites" for the Giant otters, where they do what we called the “poop dance.” They all use the same area to use the bathroom, and they always mix the excrement before they use the area. No one really knows why. This is one campsite we found. We collected this and washed it. Then, scientists take the remaining fish scales and bones to figure out what the otters have been eating.

Because the wet season floods most of the banks otters use to set up camp, we had difficulty spotting otters. In the end, our team of teachers was lucky to see 2 neotropical otters, and 3 giant otter sightings. Only the last sighting, shown in the video here, was long enough to really study. This family of giant otters stuck around for 30 seconds in plain view, and I was lucky to get this video footage. I am excited that Mr. Barroeta will be using this footage to help identify the otters in his research.