{"id":23479,"date":"2024-05-18T06:28:26","date_gmt":"2024-05-18T00:58:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=23479"},"modified":"2025-04-07T02:49:01","modified_gmt":"2025-04-06T21:19:01","slug":"sea-otters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/sea-otters\/","title":{"rendered":"Sea Otters"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>About Sea Otters:<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>It is an aquatic member of the <strong>weasel family<\/strong>, found along the coasts of the <strong>Pacific Ocean in North America and Asia.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Habitat:<\/strong> It spends most of its time in the water but, in some locations, comes ashore to sleep or rest.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Appearance:<\/strong> Sea otters have <strong>webbed feet<\/strong>, <strong>water-repellent fur<\/strong> to keep them dry and warm, and nostrils and ears that close in the water.<\/li>\n<li>They generally eat food equal to about a quarter of their body weight daily as they prowl kelp forests and seagrass beds.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Ecological significance<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>It\u2019s a <strong>keystone species,<\/strong> which means that the health of sea otters is a good indication of the health of other species and ecosystems nearby.<\/li>\n<li>It plays a crucial role in <strong>maintaining the balance of marine ecosystems<\/strong>. By preying on sea urchins, they help control the population of these spiny creatures.<\/li>\n<li>Without otters, sea urchins can overpopulate and decimate kelp forests. These kelp forests are vital habitats for a myriad of marine life, offering shelter and food for numerous species.<\/li>\n<li>The presence of sea otters <strong>helps sustain the biodiversity <\/strong>and health of these underwater forests.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Conservation status<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>IUCN Red List:<\/strong> Endangered<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>Q1: What are keystone species?<\/h3>\n<p>It is an organism that helps define an entire ecosystem. Without its keystone species, the ecosystem would be dramatically different or cease to exist altogether. Keystone species have low functional redundancy.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/sci-tech\/science\/sea-otters-get-more-prey-and-reduce-tooth-damage-using-tools\/article68185659.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Sea otters get more prey and reduce tooth damage using tools<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sea Otters is an aquatic member of the weasel family, found along the coasts of the Pacific Ocean in North America and Asia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":23480,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-23479","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23479","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=23479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23479\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}