How many urchins does a sea otter normally eat a day?
A. Although sea otters do enjoy eating sea urchins, this is not their only food! They also eat mussels, abalone, clams, scallops, crabs, snails, chitons, octopus and squid! They certainly do eat a lot, however – in order to maintain their body heat, they have a very high metabolic rate. This means that they must eat a lot – estimated to be about 25% of their body weight per day. We can therefore make an estimate of how many sea urchins a sea otter would eat in a day (assuming that it did not eat any other of its favourite foods!) A full grown male sea otter weighs about 40 kilograms. This would mean that he would eat 25% of that per day, or 10 kilograms of food. If we estimate the weight of a red sea urchin as 200 grams, then our hungry sea otter would have to eat about 50 urchins per day. Remember, this is certainly a rough estimate! BACK TO SEAL INDEX OR ANSWER FILE Sea Otter Feeding Habits – Received from Kaya in Washington, DC. Q: How do sea otters eat? A: Sea otters feed on many t
