Endangered
Giant otter
Pteronura brasiliensis
The giant otter or giant river otter is a South American carnivorous mammal.
Appearance
The giant otter has the shortest fur of all otter species. It is typically chocolate brown, but may be reddish or fawn, and appears nearly black when wet. The fur is extremely dense, so much so that water cannot penetrate to the skin. Guard hairs trap water and keep the inner fur dry. The guard hairs are approximately 8 millimeters (5⁄16 of an inch) in length, about twice as long as the fur of the inner coat.
It has the greatest body length of any species in the mustelid family, although the sea otter may be heavier. Males are between 1.5 and 1.7 m (4 ft 11 in and 5 ft 7 in) in length from head to tail and females between 1 and 1.5 m (3 ft 3+1⁄2 in and 4 ft 11 in).
Published measurements include mass about 200.
Range and habitat
It occurs in freshwater rivers and streams, that generally flood seasonally. Other water habitats include freshwater springs and permanent freshwater lakes. Four specific vegetation types occur on one important creek in Suriname: riverbank high forest, floodable mixed marsh and high swamp forest, floodable low marsh forest, and grass islands and floating meadows within open areas of the creek itself.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet and breeding
The giant otter is large, gregarious, and diurnal. Prey species found were also sedentary, generally swimming only short distances, that may aid the giant otter in predation.
At Tierpark Hagenbeck in Germany, long-term pair bonding and individualized mate selection were seen, with copulation most frequently taking place in water. The groups are centered on a dominant breeding pair and are extremely cohesive and cooperative.
In crisis
Decades of poaching for its velvety pelt, peaking in the 1950s and 1960s, considerably diminished population numbers. The species was listed as endangered in 1999 and wild population estimates are typically below 5,000. It is one of the most endangered mammal species in the Neotropics.
Habitat degradation and loss is the greatest current threat. It has no serious natural predators other than humans, although it must compete with other predators, such as the Neotropical otters and various crocodilian species, for food resources.
CITES lists this taxon on Appendix I. Confirm the current appendix on the CITES checklist.
Giant otter is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Giant otter, Wikidata item Q83774. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
