How many baby Marine otters are in a litter?
A Marine otter (Lontra felina) usually gives birth to around 2 babies.
Each of those little ones spend around 76 days as a fetus before they are released into the wild. Upon birth, they weight 136 grams (0.3 lbs) and measure 91.3 cm (3′ 0″). They are a member of the Mustelidae family (genus: Lontra). An adult Marine otter grows up to a size of 67.8 cm (2′ 3″).
To have a reference: Humans obviously usually have a litter size of one ;). Their babies are in the womb of their mother for 280 days (40 weeks) and reach an average size of 1.65m (5′ 5″). They weight in at 62 kg (137 lbs), which is obviously highly individual, and reach an average age of 75 years.
The marine otter (Lontra felina) is a rare and relatively unknown South American mammal of the weasel family (Mustelidae). The scientific name means “otter cat”, and in Spanish, the marine otter is also often referred to as gato marino: “marine cat”. The marine otter (while spending much of its time out of the water) only lives in saltwater, coastal environments and rarely ventures into freshwater or estuarine habitats. This saltwater exclusivity is unlike most other otter species, except for the almost fully aquatic sea otter (Enhydra lutris) of the north Pacific.
Other animals of the family Mustelidae
Marine otter is a member of the Mustelidae, as are these animals:
- Back-striped weasel weighting around 1.5 kilograms (3.31 lbs)
- Hog badger with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Black-footed ferret with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Chinese ferret-badger with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Long-tailed weasel with 6 babies per pregnancy
- Steppe polecat with 7 babies per pregnancy
- Giant otter with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Malayan weasel with 4 babies per pregnancy
- Southern river otter weighting around 7.5 kilograms (16.53 lbs)
- Palawan stink badger weighting around 2.5 kilograms (5.51 lbs)
Animals that share a litter size with Marine otter
Those animals also give birth to 2 babies at once:
- Golden-backed tree-rat
- Crested servaline genet
- Rusty-spotted genet
- Java pipistrelle
- Long-nosed bandicoot
- European pine vole
- Siberian roe deer
- Blanford’s rat
- Collie’s squirrel
- Niobe’s shrew
Animals with the same weight as a Marine otter
What other animals weight around 11.2 kg (24.69 lbs)?
- Ursine tree-kangaroo usually reaching 13.28 kgs (29.28 lbs)
- Siamang usually reaching 10.84 kgs (23.9 lbs)
- Cape grysbok usually reaching 10.47 kgs (23.08 lbs)
- Iberian lynx usually reaching 11.08 kgs (24.43 lbs)
- Angola colobus usually reaching 8.99 kgs (19.82 lbs)
- Northern plains gray langur usually reaching 12.64 kgs (27.87 lbs)
- Black-footed gray langur usually reaching 10.03 kgs (22.11 lbs)
- Pennant’s colobus usually reaching 9.16 kgs (20.19 lbs)
- European badger usually reaching 11.89 kgs (26.21 lbs)
- Black snub-nosed monkey usually reaching 11 kgs (24.25 lbs)
Animals with the same size as a Marine otter
Also reaching around 67.8 cm (2′ 3″) in size do these animals:
- Indian crested porcupine gets as big as 75 cm (2′ 6″)
- Bobcat gets as big as 69.1 cm (2′ 4″)
- Black crested gibbon gets as big as 54.5 cm (1′ 10″)
- Agile gibbon gets as big as 54.4 cm (1′ 10″)
- Ocelot gets as big as 74.6 cm (2′ 6″)
- Dusky pademelon gets as big as 54.5 cm (1′ 10″)
- Margay gets as big as 60 cm (2′ 0″)
- Tana River red colobus gets as big as 56 cm (1′ 11″)
- Jungle cat gets as big as 70.6 cm (2′ 4″)
- Spotted-necked otter gets as big as 59.4 cm (2′ 0″)