Otters
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91 free Otters trivia questions with answers — nature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
29 free otters trivia questions with answers. Think you know everything about otters? Challenge yourself with our comprehensive 91-question trivia quiz covering otter species, behaviors, and fascinating facts. From sea otters to river otters, discover how much you really know about these intelligent and playful mammals that captivate people worldwide.
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Q 01Otters are carnivorous mammals belonging to which family, which also includes weasels, badgers, and mink?
Mustelidae
Mustelidae mostly share a long body and short legs: the build that lets a weasel hunt in burrows and crevices makes an otter a streamlined swimmer.
Q 02Why does a sea otter keep rolling over in the water while it eats?
To rinse off scraps
To rinse off scraps: dirty fur loses its insulation and lets cold water through to the skin, a real danger for an animal with no blubber to keep it warm.
Q 03How do sea otters crack open clams and other hard-shelled prey?
Pounding them on a rock
Pounding them on a rock: some sea otters use the stone as an anvil and smash the shell down onto it, while others swing it like a hammer, which makes them one of the few mammals that use tools.
Q 04What is a floating group of resting sea otters called?
A raft
A raft keeps resting sea otters together: sleepers sometimes hold paws, or simply stay within sight and sound of each other, so that nobody drifts away from the group.
Q 05What is the traditional British name for an otter's den?
A holt
A holt is usually a ready-made hollow rather than a freshly dug burrow: otters move in among riverbank tree roots or rocks and line the chamber with grass and moss.
Q 06Having no blubber, what does a sea otter's dense fur trap against its skin to stay warm?
A layer of air
A layer of air: long guard hairs keep the underfur dry so that it can hold tiny bubbles, which is why a sea otter spends hours every day grooming and fluffing its coat.
Q 07Fittingly for such playful animals, a group of otters is known by which collective noun?
A romp
A romp also means a bout of boisterous play, which suits animals that wrestle, play tag and slide down the same muddy or snowy bank again and again.
Q 08Sea otters live along the shores of Russia, Alaska and beyond, on the rim of which ocean?
The North Pacific
The North Pacific: fur hunters had cut the whole species to perhaps 2,000 animals by 1911, when an international treaty finally banned the hunt and let sea otters recover.
Q 09What do North American river otters mainly eat?
Fish, crayfish, and frogs
Fish, crayfish, and frogs: river otters mostly catch slow fish such as suckers rather than prized game fish, simply because slower prey is easier to run down.
Q 10Where does a diving sea otter stash spare prey?
In pockets under its forelegs
In pockets under its forelegs: a flap of loose skin at each armpit holds several clams or urchins, and often a rock as well, so the otter can gather more before it has to surface.
Q 11Otters are naturally absent from which two continents?
Australia and Antarctica
Australia and Antarctica: no member of the weasel family ever reached either continent on its own, while otters spread across all the others, in rivers, lakes and along sea coasts.
Q 12Roughly what share of its body weight does a sea otter eat each day?
About 25 percent
About 25 percent: with no blubber, a sea otter burns food fast just to keep warm, and a 150-pound person would have to put away 35 to 40 pounds of food a day to match it.
Q 13Sea otter fur is the densest of any animal: roughly how many hairs grow on each square centimetre?
About 150,000
Q 21Which otter carries the scientific name Lutra lutra?
Eurasian otter
The Eurasian otter is Lutra lutra, and although many also hunt in the sea along rocky coasts, they need fresh water close by for bathing to keep their fur clean.
Q 22Before leaving to hunt, a sea otter mother often wraps her pup in what?
Kelp
Kelp is anchored to the seabed, so the wrapped pup stays put instead of drifting out to sea; a mother bears just one pup at a time and cannot afford to lose it.
Q 23What does a river otter mother usually do to the pups' father once they are born?
Drives him away
Drives him away: she raises the newborns by herself in the den, though once the pups are older the male may be allowed to rejoin the family and help bring them up.
About 150,000 hairs per square centimetre, or around a million per square inch: with no blubber, that coat is all that stands between a sea otter and the cold sea.
Q 14Which two body parts can an otter seal shut to keep water out when it dives?
Ears and nostrils
Ears and nostrils close on cue, and a sea otter can then hold its breath for up to five minutes, though most dives last about one.
Q 15What special name do British naturalists give the droppings otters leave in prominent spots?
Spraint
Spraint smells surprisingly sweet, often likened to jasmine tea, and otters leave it on rocks, logs and bridges as scented messages that mark territory and help them find mates.
Q 16What do otters mainly use their long, stiff whiskers for?
Detecting prey movements in murky water
Detecting prey movements in murky water: an otter's whiskers pick up the tiny currents made by a swimming fish, which is why otters can hunt in the dark and in silty rivers.
Q 17How do sea otters typically rest at the surface?
Floating on their backs
Floating on their backs: a resting sea otter holds its paws and flippers up out of the cold water to save heat, and it eats and grooms in the same pose.
Q 18For keeping sea urchins in check, ecologists call sea otters what kind of species?
Keystone
Keystone species: where sea otters vanish, urchins multiply and graze the seaweed forests bare, leaving 'urchin barrens' with little shelter left for fish.
Q 19In which country do fishermen still breed otters and train them to chase fish into their nets?
Bangladesh
Bangladesh: otter fishing was once common across Asia, but a count published in 2011 found only 46 crews near the Sundarbans still breeding smooth-coated otters and handing the craft down the generations.
Q 20What made a Santa Cruz sea otter nicknamed 841 famous in summer 2023?
Stealing surfboards
Stealing surfboards: otter 841, a five-year-old female, repeatedly climbed onto surfers' boards off Santa Cruz, California, in July 2023 and chewed them, evading capture teams for weeks.
Q 24A 2020 study linked rock juggling by Asian small-clawed otters to what?
Hunger
Hunger: the Royal Society Open Science study found zoo otters juggled pebbles more when they were hungry, yet the keenest jugglers were no faster at solving food puzzles.
Q 25In Spanish, 'nutria' means otter; in American English it names which animal instead?
A large swamp rodent
A large swamp rodent: the South American coypu picked up the otter's Spanish name, and its beaver-like fur was prized for coats, which is why fur farmers spread it around the world.
Q 26The 1911 treaty that saved the sea otter from extinction was written mainly to protect which other animal?
Fur seals
Fur seals were the treaty's target, but its ban on hunting fur-bearing animals at sea also covered sea otters, by then down to fewer than 2,000, and halted the hunt.
Q 27A diet heavy in sea urchins can stain a sea otter's teeth and bones which colour?
Purple
Purple: the urchin pigment echinochrome builds up over years, so a heavy urchin-eater can end up with anything from a few purple teeth to a whole purple skeleton.
Q 28What is a newborn sea otter pup unable to do until its adult coat grows?
Dive
Dive: a newborn's fluffy coat is so buoyant that the pup bobs on the surface like a cork, and it cannot get under until sleeker adult fur starts to grow in.
Q 29The 2007 viral video of two sea otters holding paws was filmed at which aquarium?
Vancouver
Vancouver Aquarium: the paler otter, Nyac, had survived the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill; her paw-holding clip with Milo drew millions of YouTube views before she died in 2008.
Q 30The 1989 Exxon Valdez spill killed thousands of sea otters in which Alaskan body of water?
Prince William Sound
Prince William Sound: oiled fur stops insulating, so thousands of sea otters died of cold after the tanker ran aground in March 1989, and lingering oil held the survivors back for years.