The Mystery of the Juggling Otters

Did you know that the otters fiddle stones very quickly from one hand to another holding them close to their body? This act is exaggeratedly described by researchers as juggling. It’s not exactly real juggling, where they throw multiple objects in the air while catching them. But it’s close enough- they toss stones or other objects very rapidly between their paws. For many years researchers believed that it is a playful act that teaches them life skills. They believed that otters are improving their dexterity and skills to be able to find food under hard shells and in hidden places because of this juggling. It’s a believable argument that by juggling rocks constantly across their paws, it can improve the flexibility of their paws and help them to skillfully open shells and reach for food hidden under rocks and other objects. But recently, a study in England was conducted between Asian clawed otters that eat seafood from hard shells and smooth otters that eat only fish. These two types of otters were both given food hidden inside tennis balls, shells, and other unfamiliar containers like medicine screw cap bottles. They predicted that small clawed shell-eating otters would better extract the meat out of these objects, because their eating habits also have similar activities and they have improved dexterity skills from juggling. But surprisingly, both otter types were able to remove meat from all the objects and the small clawed otters did not show any advantage over fish-eating otters. This proved that juggling in otters does not have to do with practicing a life skill, but it may be just play. Interestingly, they also found that the juggling starts or becomes intense when they are hungry and ready to eat food. This may show that they are excited, and they express this excitement through juggling. Another observation that was made during this study was that older otters that have passed their mating age juggle often and more than the ones with offsprings. The same applies to very young otters that juggle more than their parent otters. They concluded that the more free time otters have, the more they would engage in this juggling activity. Parent otters are obviously busy feeding and taking care of their little ones, so they juggle less. The little ones that have enough food and safety provided there may simply be juggling for fun or out of boredom!

However, the mystery of the juggling otters is still being investigated by animal behaviorists to reach a conclusion. 

Picture Source: Science News