This large, playful member of the weasel family makes a den with an underwater entrance in stream banks. Fish, frogs, snakes, crayfish, blue crabs, and even young muskrats are on the menu for this web-footed aquatic mammal. Although not as agile on land as its weasel cousins, river otters (Lutra canadensis) will cross large land expanses to reach another lake or river with better hunting opportunities. Slick troughs in snow or mud on a river bank will sometimes give away the presence of this secretive critter.
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