otter
An river otter was captured on camera taking on an juvenile alligator...and winning. The battle took place at the Lake Woodruff National Wildlife Refuge in Florida in 2011. More images can be seen on their Facebook page where the images were recently posted, impressive! According to National Geographic, the normal diet of a river otter consists of birds, small rodents, frogs, turtles, crabs, and fish. Let's just add juvenile alligators to the list now.
Photo from U.S. FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE/FACEBOOK
Perhaps equally impressive is this olive python that was seen strangling then…
A small-clawed otter (Aonyx cinerea), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
A family of North American river otters (Lontra canadensis), photographed in Yellowstone National Park.
A stuffed North American river otter (Lontra canadensis), in the collection at the New Jersey State Museum.
Seals and sea-lions gracefully careen through today's oceans with the help of legs that have become wide, flat flippers. But it was not always this way. Seals evolved from carnivorous ancestors that walked on land with sturdy legs; only later did these evolve into the flippers that the family is known for. Now, a beautifully new fossil called Puijila illustrates just what such early steps in seal evolution looked like. With four legs and a long tail, it must have resembled a large otter but it was, in fact, a walking seal.
Natalia Rybczynski unearthed the new animal at Devon Island, Canada…