Guide
Otter
The otter is a waterside carnivore, and its droppings — called spraints — are so tightly tied to rivers and coasts that finding them is a classic way to prove otters are present.
Identifying the droppings
- Spraints are left on prominent waterside spots: rocks, logs, under bridges, and at the foot of riverbank trails.
- They are packed with fish bones, scales, and crayfish shell — the remains of an aquatic diet.
- Fresh spraint has a distinctive, oddly pleasant smell often compared to jasmine tea, unlike the foul odour of most carnivore scat.
- Rivers, lakes, wetlands, and rocky coasts are where you find them.
In the field
Placement plus contents make the otter almost unmistakable. A small dark deposit full of glinting fish scales, sitting on a boulder right beside the water, is a textbook spraint. Otters use these as signposts, so favoured marking rocks build up repeated spraints over time.
The clues that separate otter from other waterside animals are diet and contents: a beaver eats bark and leaves woody droppings in the water, while the otter's fishy, bone-filled spraint on a dry rock announces a carnivore.
Game facts
- Class
- Mammal
- Diet
- Carnivore
- Habitat
- Rivers & lakes, Coast, Wetlands
- Region
- Europe, Asia, North America, South America, Africa
- Typical adult weight
- 9 kg
- Typical body length
- 70 cm
- Activity
- Active by night
- Social pattern
- Mostly solitary
- Conservation
- Near threatened
- Puzzle photos
- 7
In the game
When the habitat cells point toward water but the diet is carnivorous, otter becomes a strong candidate in the game.
Similar guesses
Photo sources
Image credits are shown after each puzzle to avoid spoiling the answer.
- Otter Spraint - Flickr - gailhampshire.jpggailhampshire from Cradley, Malvern, U.K · CC BY 2.0
- Otter spraint (32462748671).jpggailhampshire from Cradley, Malvern, U.K · CC BY 2.0
- Otter spraint - Flickr - gailhampshire.jpggailhampshire from Cradley, Malvern, U.K · CC BY 2.0