Why can sea otters eat sea urchins?
Otters have little pouches under their arms, in which they can store rocks to use as little hammers for smashing open urchin shells.
What eats a sea urchin?
Sea urchins are sought out as food by birds, sea stars, cod, lobsters, and foxes. In the northwest, sea otters are common predators of the purple sea urchin.
Do sea urchins hurt sea otters?
Sea Urchin In this predator-prey relationship, where the urchin is the prey and main source of food for the sea otter, sea urchins play a large role in the population growth for the otter (Costa, 2011). If there was a decrease in sea urchin population, this would consequently have an adverse effect on the sea otter.
Do sea otters eat green sea urchins?
Sea otters are a 'keystone species': they play a disproportionately important role in their ecosystem, influencing the populations of the plants and animals that live there. In particular, they protect kelp forests by preying on sea urchins.
How can otters eat sea urchins?
Quickly spinning the sea urchin in her paws, she breaks off the prickly spines. Using her teeth, she chomps open the body and licks out the insides. The sea otter's high metabolic rate helps them to stay warm – to fuel it each day, they have to eat 20-30% of their body weight in food!
Do otters eat red urchins?
Sea otters are foragers that eat mostly hard-shelled invertebrates, including sea urchins and a variety of clams, mussels, and crabs. They have an interesting method of eating their prey.
What is the relationship between sea otters and sea urchins?
Sea otters are the main predator of sea urchins and keep the urchin population in check. Sea urchins greedily graze on kelp when otters are not around, but in the presence of the predators, urchins hide in crevices and eat just the plant scraps.
Do sea otters eat purple sea urchins?
Sea otters, sunflower stars and California sheephead prey on the purple sea urchin. Sea otter predation on the purple sea urchin helps protect kelp forests from destruction. Sea otters that regularly eat the purple sea urchin are easily detected — their bones and teeth turn sea-urchin purple!
What animals do otters eat?
River otters eat a variety of aquatic wildlife, such as fish, crayfish, crabs, frogs, birds' eggs, birds and reptiles such as turtles. They have also been known to eat aquatic plants and to prey on other small mammals, such as muskrats or rabbits. They have a very high metabolism, so they need to eat frequently.
What are 3 interesting facts about sea otters?
Sea otter fur is the densest of any mammal at about 1 million hairs per square inch (We have 100,000 hairs on our entire head). Wild sea otters typically have a lifespan between 15 and 20 years. Average weight of an adult female California sea otter is about 50 lbs. Males can weigh up to 70 lbs.
Do starfish eat sea urchins?
Starfish eat by wrapping themselves around the sea urchin and then everting their stomach against the sea urchin to dissolve away the flesh and shell, eventually getting to the succulent interior of the sea urchin.
Do sea otters eat starfish?
Sea otters eat a wide variety of prey, including marine invertebrates such as echinoderms (sea stars and sea urchins), crustaceans (e.g., crabs), cephalopods (e.g., squid), bivalves (clams, mussels, abalone), gastropods (snails), and chitons.
How do sea otters get food?
Sea otters obtain their food by diving. Using their webbed feet, which are well adapted for swimming, sea otters can dive more than 200 feet and stay underwater for up to 5 minutes. Sea otters can sense prey using their whiskers. They also use their agile front paws to find and grasp their prey.
What do otters eat?
There are deep-diving otters that eat benthic organisms such as urchins, crabs, and abalone, medium-diving otters that forage for clams and worms and others that feed at the surface on organisms such as snails. These dietary preferences may also make certain otters susceptible to disease.
How do mollusks eat rocks?
Once at the surface, they often eat by placing the food on their stomachs, and then placing a rock on their stomachs and then smashing the prey on the rock to open it and get at the flesh inside.
How much do sea otters eat?
Sea otters have a high metabolic rate (that is, they use a high amount of energy) that is 2-3 times that of other mammals their size. Sea otters eat about 20-30% of their body weight each day. Otters weigh 35-90 pounds (males weigh more than females).
Where do sea otters live?
Jennifer Kennedy. Updated June 21, 2019. Sea otters live in the Pacific Ocean and are found in Russia, Alaska, Washington state and California. These furry marine mammals are one of only a few marine animals known to use tools to obtain their food.
Do otters have different prey?
Individual otters in an area seem to have different pre y preferences. A study in California found that among an otter population, different otters specialized in diving at different depths to find different prey items.
Do sea otters eat kelp?
In a kelp forest, sea urchins can graze on the kelp and eat their holdfasts, resulting in deforesting the kelp from an area. But if sea otters are abundant, they eat sea urchins and keep the urchin population in check, which allows kelp to flourish. This, in turn, provides shelter for sea otter pups and a variety of other marine life, ...
What are otters eating?
By eating large quantities of purple sea urchins, otters off the coast of California are helping preserve kelp forests. Otters have helped protect patches of kelp, an example of how important ecosystems are in the natural world. In an ecosystem, predators known as a ‘keystone species’ help control populations of prey.
What is the role of sea otters in the ecosystem?
Predator power. Sea otters are a type of dominant predator known as a "keystone species" that maintain an ecosystem’s balance by controlling populations of prey – in this case sea urchins.
How do otter help the ecosystem?
Otters have helped protect patches of kelp, an example of how important ecosystems are in the natural world. In an ecosystem, predators known as a ‘keystone species’ help control populations of prey. At least 8 million species of plants and animals on earth today live together in interconnected systems. Changing human systems such as food ...
Do otters eat sea urchins?
A purple urchin eater. Scientists investigating declines in California’s kelp forests credit otters with helping to protect kelp - a species of seaweed - through their fondness for eating sea urchins. But not all urchins are equal to the otters, which zone in on the healthy nutritious ones and leave others behind.
