Otter genius! They’re just as clever as chimpanzees

OTTERS are among the cleverest animals, research suggests.

In a test involving unclipping containers of food, a group of otters were found to learn from each other how to do it – something not many species can do.

It is the latest research to highlight otters’ social nature. Researcher Dr Neeltje Boogert, from the Centre for Ecology and Conservation at Exeter University, said: ‘We know that sea otters hold paws when they are sleeping and use tools to crack open clams, and smooth-coated otters work together to “round up” fish when they are hunting.

‘ Now otters have shown another fundamentally cultural trait, which is social learning. Very few animals are known to teach their young, but anecdotally this puts them among highly intelligent creatures like dolphins and chimpanzees.’

‘Highly intelligent’

The study tested 24 otters, who hunt together and typically live in groups of four or five, with various shapes of containers filled with food, where each box was harder to get into. These ranged from a simple lid to be lifted to a bamboo cane mechanism which had to be pulled up and to the right to fit through a hole. The otters, taken from UK zoos, used their paws and teeth to unclip the boxes. And the ‘solution’ to opening each box soon spread through the group as they copied each other. Young otters were also six times as fast as their parents to open boxes, the study, published in the Royal Society journal Open Science, found.

Dr Boogert said they hope the findings could be used to ‘teach captive otters how to avoid new predators like dogs, and how to find food in the wild, which will improve their chances of survival when they are released’.