Kleve (dpa / lnw) - With her big googly eyes, a young lady dwarf otter turns the heads of visitors to the Kleve zoo on the Lower Rhine. The little dwarf otter was born on July 14, but only now had the first appointment for a checkup with the vet, the zoo said on Tuesday. The lively offspring spent the first few weeks in a protected den.
Little otters, which are precocial and born blind and deaf, only begin to leave the den when they are about one and a half months old. "Our young dwarf otter is developing splendidly," said zoo director and veterinarian Martin Polotzek. You can observe every day how the young animal, which now weighs around 600 grams, is becoming more and more courageous and ventures further and further out of the whelping box. It makes a "very bright, healthy impression," says Polotzek. "It keeps its family really busy and gives our now nine-headed dwarf otter a fresh impetus."
A microchip was placed under the skin so that the new family member can later be easily distinguished from the other otters. According to Tiergarten, pygmy otters are now an endangered species due to increasing habitat destruction and illegal hunting.
