{"id":18094,"date":"2025-08-12T11:48:28","date_gmt":"2025-08-12T06:18:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=18094"},"modified":"2025-08-12T13:35:36","modified_gmt":"2025-08-12T08:05:36","slug":"smooth-coated-otter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/smooth-coated-otter\/","title":{"rendered":"Smooth-Coated Otter"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Smooth-Coated Otters Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Recently, the National Zoological Park (NZP) in Delhi welcomed a pair of smooth-coated otters from Surat in a rare animal exchange after 20 years.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Smooth-Coated Otters<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is a species of otter, the only extant representative of the genus Lutrogale.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Distribution:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> They live in <\/span><b>southern and Southeast Asia, China, and India<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and in <\/span><b>Iraq<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> there is a small population.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Habitat of<\/b> <b>Smooth-Coated Otters<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They are mostly found in <\/span><b>lowlands, coastal mangrove forests, peat swamp forests<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, freshwater wetlands, large forested rivers, lakes, and rice paddies.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Although adapted for water, smooth-coated otters are <\/span><b>equally comfortable on land <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and can travel long distances overland in search of suitable habitat.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Features of Smooth-coated Otters<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They are the largest otter in Southeast Asia.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As its name indicates, the fur of this <\/span><b>species is smoother and shorter<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> than that of other otters.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The fur is light to dark brown dorsally and light brown to almost gray ventrally.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They have short, tightly packed under fur and longer<\/span><b>, water-repellant guard hairs.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They are <\/span><b>strong swimmers and hunt in groups<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. When fishing, they travel in a V-formation going upstream.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Threats:<\/b> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Loss of habitat, habitat degradation due to water pollution from fertilizers and pesticides and poaching.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Conservation Status: IUCN:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Vulnerable<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Source:<\/b> <a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/cities\/delhi\/delhi-zoo-travel-cage-fish-journey-10182967\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">IE<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Smooth-Coated Otter is a species of otter, the only extant representative of the genus Lutrogale. Read more about Smooth-Coated Otter, Habitat, Features, IUCN Status, Latest News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":59160,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[21,2155,22,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-18094","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-prelims-pointers","9":"tag-smooth-coated-otter","10":"tag-upsc-current-affairs","11":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","12":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18094\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}