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Animal profile
Enhydra lutris
The sea otter is the heaviest member of the weasel family and among the smallest marine mammals. It has no blubber layer and relies entirely on fur and a very high metabolic rate to stay warm in cold water. By eating sea urchins it exerts strong control over kelp forest structure, making it a textbook keystone species.
Every other marine mammal insulates with fat. The sea otter has almost none, relying on the densest fur known, and pays for it with a metabolic rate several times that expected for its size and a near-constant need to eat.
Unlike seals and whales, the sea otter has no insulating fat layer. It stays warm using the densest fur of any mammal and by burning food at a rate several times that of a land mammal its size.