Otter
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93 free Otter trivia questions with answers — nature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
10 free Otter trivia questions with answers. Otter trivia lives in two places on BrainPickle. This page is the shorter set; the main quiz is Otters trivia, with our deepest question pool on the topic and a source behind every answer.
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Q 01Otters belong to which animal family, also known for weasels and badgers?
Mustelidae
Mustelidae is the weasel family, and it used to hold the skunks as well, until genetic evidence moved them into a family of their own, Mephitidae.
Q 02In the Harry Potter books, whose Patronus takes the shape of an otter?
Hermione Granger
Hermione Granger casts a silver otter because J.K. Rowling gave the character her own favourite animal.
Q 03In southern Bangladesh, fishermen have bred smooth-coated otters for generations to do what job?
Herd fish into nets
Herd fish into nets is the job: smooth-coated otters naturally hunt in groups that drive shoals together, and the fishermen breed and train them to use that instinct.
Q 04Otters hunting in dark or murky rivers track their prey with which sensitive feature?
Whiskers
Whiskers do the tracking: the long, stiff hairs pick up the pressure changes a moving fish makes, so an otter can hunt in cloudy water or in the dark.
Q 05What is a common term for an otter's den or burrow?
Holt
A holt is the otter's den, fitted into almost any cavity near the bank, from tangled tree roots to piles of boulders, then lined with moss and grass.
Q 06Sea otter fur is the densest of any animal, with roughly how many hairs per square inch?
1 million
1 million hairs per square inch, about ten times what grows on a whole human head, stand in for blubber: the sea otter has none, so its coat traps a layer of warming air.
Q 07Sea otters, among the few tool-using mammals, most often use what to crack open shellfish?
Rocks
Rocks serve as both hammer and anvil: a sea otter rests a stone on its chest and pounds a clam or mussel against it until the shell gives way.
Q 08What are resting groups of ten to a hundred sea otters, all of one sex, called?
Rafts
Rafts form only for resting: each sea otter dives for its food alone, then floats back to join a group of its own sex.
Q 09The giant otter, the longest otter of all, lives mainly along which great river?
Amazon
Amazon waters are its stronghold, and unlike most of the weasel family the giant otter is highly social, living and hunting in close-knit family groups.
Q 10The Asian small-clawed otter, the smallest of all, uses nimble paws to dig out which main prey?
Crabs
Crabs are its staple, dug out by touch from mud and sand, and the ones it eats are counted a crop pest in rice paddies.
Q 11'Otter', from Old English 'otor', shares a Proto-Indo-European root with which everyday English word?
Water
Water and 'otter' grew from the same ancient root, so the animal's name simply means 'water creature'; the Greek hydra, a water snake, is another cousin.
Q 12River otters cross snow, ice and muddy banks with which playful move, also a quick way to travel?
Sliding
Sliding is more than fun: the play is thought to strengthen family bonds and let young otters rehearse hunting moves, and on ice it is simply an efficient way to get about.
Q 13In Norse myth, which god killed the dwarf Ótr while he was in otter form?
Loki
Loki killed Ótr by mistake, not knowing the otter was a shapeshifting dwarf, and had to pay his father Hreidmar enough gold to cover the pelt, a hoard that came with a curse.
Q 21Gavin Maxwell's 1960 bestseller about living with otters on the Scottish coast is titled what?
Ring of Bright Water
Ring of Bright Water takes its title from a poem by Maxwell's friend Kathleen Raine, and its success led to a 1969 film.
Q 22Gavin Maxwell's otter Mijbil, brought home from Iraq's marshes, was found by London zoologists to be what?
A previously unknown subspecies
Mijbil proved to be a previously unknown subspecies of the smooth-coated otter, named Lutrogale perspicillata maxwelli, or Maxwell's otter, in his honour.
Q 23Henry Williamson's 1927 novel Tarka the Otter is set in which county?
Devon
Q 14In Japanese folklore the otter, or kawauso, tricks humans in the same way as which two other shapeshifting animals?
Foxes and tanuki
Foxes and tanuki are the otter's fellow tricksters: kawauso tales have them snuffing out travellers' lanterns and turning into beautiful women to fool young men.
Q 15Which religion classes the otter as a clean animal whose killing is a grave sin?
Zoroastrianism
In Zoroastrianism the otter is a clean creature of Ahura Mazda; the Vendidad devotes a chapter to the heavy penalties for killing a 'water dog', its word for the otter.
Q 16In 2012 Japan's Environment Ministry declared the Japanese otter what?
Extinct
Extinct was the verdict, 33 years after one was last officially recorded; an otter filmed on Tsushima Island in 2017 raised hopes, but its DNA turned out to be the Eurasian otter's.
Q 17The 1911 treaty that halted the sea otter hunt was written mainly to protect which other animal?
Fur seals
Fur seals gave the 1911 treaty its name, but it also ended a hunt that had cut sea otters from at least 150,000 to as few as 1,000 to 2,000 animals.
Q 18Sea otters are a classic keystone species because their appetite keeps which animals in check?
Sea urchins
Sea urchins, left unchecked, multiply and graze away the underwater forests that shelter fish and other sea life, so one hungry predator holds the whole habitat together.
Q 19Where does a diving sea otter stash the food it collects?
In a loose skin pouch under each foreleg
In a loose skin pouch under each foreleg, usually the left, a sea otter can carry several prey items up at once, leaving its paws free to keep gathering.
Q 20To avoid drifting out to sea while resting, sea otters wrap themselves in what?
Kelp
Kelp is the anchor, and mothers use it too: before diving for food, a sea otter may leave her pup wrapped in the fronds so it cannot float away.
Devon's Taw and Torridge rivers are Tarka's home, and the county council later laid out the Tarka Trail along the route the otter takes in the book.
Q 24According to Henry Williamson, the name 'Tarka' means what?
Wandering as Water
Wandering as Water was Williamson's own gloss on the name, and the prize money the book won bought the hilltop field where he built his writing hut.
Q 25Monterey Bay Aquarium readies orphaned sea otter pups for the wild by pairing each with what?
A surrogate otter mother
A surrogate otter mother, a female that cannot be released herself, teaches the pup to groom and forage, while human carers keep their distance so it stays wild.
Q 26The marine otter of Chile and Peru is known in Spanish by what nickname?
Gato marino (sea cat)
Gato marino ('sea cat') echoes its scientific name, Lontra felina; it favours rocky coasts pounded by heavy seas, where it shelters and dens in caves.
Q 27The giant otter's Brazilian nickname onça-d'água likens it to which animal?
Jaguar
Jaguar is the comparison: onça-d'água means 'water jaguar', a fitting name for a top predator that hunts in family groups and is the noisiest of all the otters.
Q 28A family group of giant otters is typically led by whom?
A lifelong breeding pair
A lifelong breeding pair heads the group, and the rest are mostly their grown offspring, who stay on and help catch fish for each year's new pups.
Q 29At which CITES level has the Asian small-clawed otter been listed since August 2019?
Appendix I
CITES CoP18 in Geneva voted in August 2019 to move the Asian small-clawed otter from Appendix II to Appendix I, banning international commercial trade in the species.
Q 30Otters live wild on every continent except Antarctica and which other?
Australia
Australia has no otters of its own, although they live as close as Indonesia; Antarctica is the only other continent without them.