Some coastal wolves in Alaska have toxic levels of mercury in their bodies after shifting from a terrestrial diet of deer and ...

Deep-diving otters eat mostly abalone, urchins and Dungeness crabs. Otters diving to medium depths—say, up to 40 feet—forage for clams, worms and smaller shellfish.

But the black abalone’s most striking feature is typically hidden — the underside of its shell, ... where they eat dead kelp and serve as food for other species, including sea otters.

For several years, researchers in Monterey Bay, Calif. have been following 196 tagged southern sea otters and tracking their diets and tool use. Their results, recently published in the journal ...

“Urchins and abalone are both declining in populations, most likely due to just sea otters eating on them. So they’re forced to switch to alternative prey,” Law said.

Chomping on all of those hard shelled organisms can cause tooth damage, so sea otters–particularly females–use tools to eat larger prey. The findings are described in a study published May 16 ...

In Monterey Bay, California, southern sea otters face food scarcity as their preferred prey, urchins and abalone, have declined due to climate change, overfishing and other environmental factors.

Some otters rely on tools to bust open hard-shelled prey items like snails, and a new study suggests this tool use is helping them to survive as their favorite, easier-to-eat foods disappear.

Some otters rely on tools to bust open hard-shelled prey items like snails, and a new study suggests this tool use is helping them to survive as their favorite, easier-to-eat foods disappear.

Some otters rely on tools to bust open hard-shelled prey items like snails, and a new study suggests this tool use is helping them to survive as their favorite, easier-to-eat foods disappear.

Some otters rely on tools to bust open hard-shelled prey items like snails, and a new study suggests this tool use is helping them to survive as their favorite, easier-to-eat foods disappear. Some ...

Sea otters are one of the few animals that use rocks and other objects to access their food, and a new study has found that individual sea otters that use tools—most of whom are female—can eat larger ...