Sea Otters Research Paper

Animals in the order Carnivora only eat meat and feed on other animals. The sea otters are part of this order. The order Carnivora consists of twelve families, nine of which live on the land. The family of this mammal is called the mustelidae. Being meat eaters, carnivores are on top of the food chain and they form the highest trophic levels within ecosystems.These are recognized to be necessary elements in the system; they improve the stability of the prey populations by keeping them in the carrying capacity of the food supply. Carnivores are best known for their building of burrows. The numbers of carnivores are limited to the food source, predators, and diseases. When human influence takes away the large predators, the small carnivores become

For example, sea otters use rocks to break open shells to eat. That’s very intelligent for a sea otter to open things for survival. It’s been an evolutionarily process to get the sea otters to do things to help them survive. Now these mammals in this order are the easiest to train. Dogs, for example, can be trained to smell a bomb or to help save humans. In China, sea otters are trained to dive fish under a net, which is then dropped and pulled in. The ability to be trained really helps the survival of the species and the carnivores evolved to improve the learning ability. Other than carnivores, there are herbivores and omnivores. Herbivores are animals that eat only plants, such as cows and deer. Omnivores, such as bears and humans, eat a variety of food sources. The mustelids are a family of carnivorous animals such as, the otter, badger, weasel, ferret, etc. They are one of the oldest and largest mammal families. The ancestors of modern mustelids have appeared more than 15 million years ago. There are about 55 species and the largest terrestrial is the wolverine. Mustelids usually are small animals with short legs, thick fur, and round