Enhydra

Enhydra is a genus of mustelid that contains the sea otter and two extinct relatives. It is the only extant genus of the bunodont otters group, referring to otters with non-blade carnassials with rounded cusps.

Enhydra

Mike Baird from Morro Bay, USA · CC BY 2.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Also called
sea otterPBDB
Sits inside
LutrinaePBDB
Diet
carnivore, omnivorePBDB, for Mustelidae
Life habit
amphibiousPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
marinePBDB

Time the record covers

At least 1.7 million years on record.

The record covers at least 1.8 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 3.6 Mya to 0 Mya.

Pliocene — about 0 of 33 occurrencesPliocenePleistocene — about 22 of 33 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 11 of 33 occurrences3.7–3.6 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences3.6–3.4 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences3.4–3.3 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences3.3–3.1 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences3.1–3.0 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences3.0–2.9 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences2.9–2.7 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences2.7–2.6 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences2.6–2.5 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences2.5–2.3 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences2.3–2.2 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences2.2–2.0 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences2.0–1.9 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences1.9–1.8 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences1.8–1.6 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences1.6–1.5 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences1.5–1.4 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.4–1.2 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences1.2–1.1 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences1.1–957 ka Mya — about 0.5 occurrences957 ka–820 ka Mya — about 0.5 occurrences820 ka–683 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence683 ka–547 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence547 ka–410 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence410 ka–273 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence273 ka–137 ka Mya — about 4 occurrences137 ka–0 Mya — about 18 occurrences1.8 Mya11.7 ka4.1 Mya0 Mya

33 occurrences of Enhydra on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

33 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

10 formations

Palos Verdes Sand — 33.60°N, 117.80°WPalos Verdes Sand — 34.00°N, 118.20°WPalos Verdes Sand — 33.66°N, 117.90°WTimms Point Silt — 33.73°N, 118.28°WNorwich Crag — 52.59°N, 1.39°EElk River — 42.80°N, 124.50°WSan Pedro — 33.75°N, 118.28°WPort Orford — 42.83°N, 124.55°WGubik — 55.30°N, 131.54°WMontezuma — 37.99°N, 121.71°WSanta Rosa Island — 34.01°N, 120.19°WMerced — 37.70°N, 122.50°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Enhydra has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 19 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Enhydra and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Enhydra and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

282 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 32 sites for Enhydra, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

20 references

Each of the 33 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 7 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content3

Picture of Enhydra

Credit
Mike Baird from Morro Bay, USA
Licence
CC BY 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

Laser scan

Licence
In Copyright
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Enhydra Enhydra lutris · imnh:r:2572

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itLutrinae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Fleming 1822