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How sea otters can fight climate change


OverSword

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Just one more reason to love these little guys :)

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Sea otters are creatures steeped in superlatives. 

Enhydra lutris is the furriest animal on Earth, with up to 140,000 hairs on every square centimeter of its body – meaning its hairs are 700 times as dense as those on a human head. Unlike many other marine mammals, they lack blubber, so they keep themselves warm by eating a quarter of their body weight in food a day. Sea otters also play a singular role in supporting kelp forests ecosystems in the North Pacific.

Few other animals eat as much relative to their weight or play such a pivotal role in maintaining their environment, says Brent Hughes, a marine ecologist studying coastal habitats at Sonoma State University in California.

Now, scientists are studying how these marine mustelids may also be climate superheroes. Sea otters help ecosystems capture carbon from the atmosphere and store it as biomass and deep-sea detritus, preventing it from being converted back to carbon dioxide and contributing to climate change. 

 

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