1. Otters are truly amphibious and have: stiff short whiskers to detect vibrations in the high density water medium; webbed paws for swimming; thick water repellant fur and are bouyant. Their highly fusiform bodies are especially built for reducing water resistence when swimming gracefully and rapidly.
2. OTTER-ESE. We have developed language skills which also double as attractive melodies. Yes some say its just because we are social so we evolved a means of vocal communication. Propaganda! We have a language because we are clever! Those of us who hang together maintain a constant, musical "gossip" or poetry if you will. Even those of us you are less socially inclined have distinctive calls for contacting eachother "here I am", and giving alarm calls.
3. Otters don't eat small terrestrial varmints because:
a. Otters don't like to have to swim across the prairie/grassland just to catch a prairie dog or vole.
b. Otters can't fit into a hole that size.
c. Rodents don't have fins and don't crunch as nicely.
d. Otters are gourmets preferring frogs, octopus, sea urchins, abalone or eel.
e. Otters don't store food like some weasels, they are such good predators that they catch it fresh for each meal, eating as often as four times a day.
4. Otters are pretty egalitarian: male and female have similar body sizes and some species are very friendly and social living in tightly linked mixed sex family groups. We are clearly more socially evolved because in some of our species females are dominant but can handle power.
Weasels are often quite chauvinistic: males are much larger, aggressive, territorial to other males and highly promiscuous. Female weasel to male weasel: " we never talk anymore honey and who was that dark sleek weasel I saw slinking out of your burrow this morning."
5. We Otters are geniuses! One particular member of our illustrious and may we emphasize distinctive lineage is a sophisticated tool user, the only one among the entire mammalian order except for you know who else. All of us have delicate and sensitive fingertips. We are able to find and capture prey by touch and vibrational sense alone if necessary. We also have table manners, bringing the food to our mouths with are dextrous hands.
Those weasels use the primitive and unsophisticated methods of using scent or hanging around old prey trails and burrows, waiting for the prey to be stupid enough to poke out their heads then, bam, when they see them they pounce on them and grab them directly with thier mouths and gobble, gracelessly away.
6. We the otters know how to have a good time. We slide down mud banks, make tunnels in the snow, frollic among the seaweeds, play games of chase among the shoreline vegetation and rock on the waves when we need to take a quick breather.
7. Scent-marking is something we otters do share with weasels, our anal glands produce a thick oily, yellow pungent musk. We may discharge musk when we are frightened or to mark territories.
But only us otters have developed this shared trait into a true tradition. We mark specific sites on a regular basis and on specific sites handed down from generation to generation. Our Amazonian branch members have developed this to the highest perfection. The Brazilian Giant Otter scent marks a 26 foot by 23 foot semicircular area of shoreline cleared entirely of vegetation, stamps it down good and grooms it daily to remove any debris.
8. The true Weasels, according to their proper common name namesakes even within their subfamily, belong only to the genera:
Mustela several North American and Asian species; Lyncodon South American; Poecilogale African. All other species in the subfamily are properly referred to as: minks, polecats, zorillas, Kolinskys, grisons, ermines and ferrets - proper names please - otherwise we of the slinky sect will refer to all of you humans collectively as " hey you monkey-boys " and each of you humans as either John Goodberry or Jane Yahoo.
Otters are otters are otters are otters whether we hark from the Callifornia sea coast, the inland freshwaters of the Amazon basin or the dank dark mucky swamps of Borneo. You can call us otters! And if only for this widely recognized identity and the many unique and shared charactristics which define OTTERNESS (see more above) we demand to be given a full family status of our own!
9. Otters belong to the subfamily lutrinae: 6 genera & 12 species.
Weasels belong to the subfamily mustellinae: 7 genera & 21 species.
10. "Weasel" is a term which is inappropriately used to identify anything vaguely cigar-shaped of moderate to small size among carnivores because American and European white male scientists didn't get out much way back when and a few true weasle species, those exhibitionists!, did:
a. there are two major families of "weasel-ness" and thirteen subfamilies ranging from wolverines to skunks to meercats
b. the Mustellidae, to which both weasels and otters do belong, is called the "Weasel Family" after only one of the subfamilies which modern people of all race and gender typically see at some point in their lives because they don't get out much either.
c. The family Viveridae, African "weasles", come in an equal diversity of types and who have common names like genet, civet, mongoose, fanaloka, linsang, fossa, falanouk.
1. We look the same if you think Gestalt, consider shape: generally an elongate cigar shape.
2. We are both carnivores: generally we all hunt down and kill and eat smaller? cuter? things such as crayfish or voles.
3. We share a love for making our homes in burrows within our mother Earth.
4. We both are into perfume: musk or scent glands.
5. We both have bacculae or penis bones.
6. Some species of weasels and otters share a propensity for rough sex with minimal foreplay: male bites female in the neck, shakes her around alot and then forcefully copulates with her for 1-2 hours.
7. Several species of weasels and otters have females which exhibit delayed implantation of the fertilized egg allowing females to put off motherhood until its convenient for them, which is when they tire of carousing across the landscape and want to settle down.
8. Many species of weasel and otters are solitary, males and females are perfectly independant of eachother, avoiding eachother throughout the year until the mating season.
9. Silly females (and some Northern European sorcerers "Hamenlapers") of some proportedly sentient primate species kill and peal off the fur-shell of both species and then wrap the dead animal's skin around their bodies not for the purpose of keeping warm but to look ?good (or to shape change to various nefarious ends).
10. So what if we belong to different subfamilies, genera and even species but we're both in the same taxonomic order: the Carnivora (South American "weasels" the Tayra eat fruits and vegetables!)
Well, there you have it. I can send a MS-Word formatted copy to anyone who's interested.
Original post by - RobV