Scientific Illustration

emilyfundis:

Otter, 2013

Graphite

rhamphotheca:

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Early humans linked to large-carnivore extinctions

Hominins could have triggered broad changes to the numbers and diversity of meat-eaters in Africa, researcher says.

by Jeff Tollefson  (26 April 2012)

Animal lovers around the world know modern otters as cute, playful and unthreatening. But the mustelid’s giant cousins in ancient Africa may have engaged in a life-and-death competition with humanity’s ancestors — and come out on the losing end.

The demise of the gigantic ‘bear otter’ (Enhydriodon dikikae) was part of a broader decline in large-carnivore diversity in Africa, which accelerated around 2 million years ago — roughly the time that the first representatives of the genus Homo appeared on the scene. Lars Werdelin, a curator at the Swedish Museum of Natural History in Stockholm has been building a case that our forebears had something to do with the change. Although direct evidence of any causal connection is sorely lacking, Werdelin says, the transition in the carnivore fossil record coincides nicely with advances in tool-making and dietary shifts among early hominins.

“The way I see it, this is one of the first ways in which we manipulated our environment on a large scale,” says Werdelin, who presented his latest findings at a symposium on human evolution and climate change at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, New York. Werdelin argues that hominins may have competed indirectly with some of these carnivores by occupying prime habitat, thus forcing the animals to change their behavior without ever coming into direct contact with them. In some cases, the hominins may have out-competed carnivores directly by forcing them to surrender fresh kills. Regardless, the emergence of early humans could have cascaded through the food chain — ultimately wiping out many of Africa’s larger meat-eaters…

(read more: Nature)              

(images via NovaTaxa: TR - Victor Leshyk; B - Cal. Academy of Sci.)

chupacupcake:

Otter skull (and little sister), 2009

Otter from Prang’s natural history series. (Boston : L. Prang and Company, c1872)

cryptobranchus:

Biomes for the LTER project. These were my three favorites. :>

biomedicalephemera:

Sea Otter (Enhydra lutris)

Aww, the sea otter…so cute, so resourceful, so smart. Such adorable bobbing buoys above the Pacific kelp forests. Such…jerks?

Yep, that’s right - just like humans observed decades ago in animals that they considered to be “highly intelligent” (such as dolphins, elephants, and apes), when you get smarter, you get more potential for dickishness. The brain power it takes to use tools and find novel ways to extract food also gives sea otters the mental capacity to understand how to manipulate the behavior of other otters.

To wit: Male sea otters are routine kidnappers. Though otters often raise pups in close proximity to one another, and males occasionally interact with pups in an amicable fashion, one of the most common behaviors of younger males is to kidnap the pup of a sleeping mom and hold it ransom.

The mother goes into a panic and will procure an almost absurd amount of food for the male, just to get her pup back. Older males will engage in kidnapping from time to time, but from what’s been observed thus far, it largely seems to be a behavior of the younger male who hasn’t perfected his hunting skills, and instead of improving his skills, sees an easy way out.

What a jerk.

Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America. John James Audubon. Completed and posthumously published by John Woodhouse Audubon, 1858.

mrflibbers:

Work in Progress.  I was going to make a pun about this, but I decided I otter avoid it.

I’m horrible!

n154_w1150 by BioDivLibrary on Flickr.

Mink and Otter

n119_w1150 by BioDivLibrary on Flickr.

Lutra vulgaris now called Lutra lutra - the European otter 

dendroica:

n71_w1150 by BioDivLibrary on Flickr.

Petri Bellonii Cenomani De aquatilibus, libri duo cum [epsilon, iota] conibus ad viuam ipsorum effigiem, quoad eius fieri potuit, expressis …
Parisiis,Apud C. Stephanum,1553.
biodiversitylibrary.org/item/26702