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CA SEA OTTERS: MONTEREY BAY
•Food & Foraging:
An otter must consume approximately 25% of its bodyweight in prey each day just to stay alive!
•A 75-pound otter can eat up to 1,500 sea urchins a day, or about 25 pounds of seafood (for a 75 pound kid, that would amount to eating 75 quarter pound hamburgers every day!).
•To meet its high energetic and thermoregulation demands, a sea otter’s metabolic rate is 2 to 3 times that of comparatively sized mammals.
•Sea otters consume a wide variety of benthic invertebrates. Prey items include sea urchins, abalone, crabs, mussels, clams, marine snails, marine worms, sea stars, and squid. In total, otters eat at least 50 species of benthic (bottom-dwelling) invertebrates, although individuals tend to specialize on only a few main prey types. Prey specialization and feeding preferences are passed on from mother to pup.
•The strong forelegs paws are used to locate and capture prey.
•Pockets of loose skin under each foreleg are used to store prey it has gathered on the seafloor for the ascent to the surface.
•Rocks are often used as tools to dislodge prey on the sea floor and to break open the hard outer shells of some prey items upon returning to the surface. Floating belly-up in the water, they place rocks on their chests and repeatedly pound hard-shelled prey against them to gain access the meat inside.
•While eating, an otter will roll repeatedly in the water to wash away food scraps from its chest.
•Unlike most other marine mammals, sea otters commonly drink seawater. Although most of the animal’s water needs are met through the consumption of prey, its large kidneys allow it to extract fresh water from seawater. Source: www.seaotters.com
The edible Mollusca of Great Britain and Ireland : With recipes for cooking them 2nd ed. / By M. S. Lovell.
London : L. Reeve & Co. [1884]
Had the perfect plate of coquinas today at La Moraga, Malaga amidst the noise and joy of multiple communion celebrations.
This shellfish is in the beach of Co To. I feel lonely when i see it. Pheww...Suddenly, i miss someone who is not miss me...And, he doesn't belong to me, forever...