THE OTTERS 



687 



African Otters 



premolar, and the great length from front to back of the molar tooth. Moreover, 

 the whole skull is much shorter than in the other species. The length of the head 

 and body of this otter varies from twenty-two to twenty-four inches, and that of the 

 tail from ten and one-half to thirteen inches. The clawless otter ranges from India 

 through Burma and the Malay Peninsula and islands to China. In India it occurs 

 in the Himalayas at low elevations, in Lower Bengal and the Nilgiri hills of Madras, 

 and perhaps also in Ceylon. It appears to be the only otter found in Java. Ac- 

 cording to Mr. Blanford, the habits of this otter are similar to those of the other 

 Oriental species. 



The whole African continent possesses but two members of the 

 group under consideration. The first of these is the African clawless 

 otter (/,. capensis), from South and West Africa, which, while agreeing with the 

 Indian clawless otter in the rudimentary condition of its claws, is distinguished by 

 its greatly superior dimensions; being, next to the Brazilian otter, the largest rep- 

 resentative of the whole group. Writing of this species, which he alludes to under 

 another Latin name, the late Professor Moseley states that "among the animals 

 which live on the Cape Peninsula, the clawless otter is worthy of mention; it is a 

 very large otter, twice or three times as large when full-grown as the European one. 

 It lives about the salt marshes and lakes, and is tolerably common; it hunts, like 

 the South- American marine otter, in companies, but only of three or four. It has 

 no claws on the fore-feet, having lost them by natural selection in some way or 

 other, and on the hind-feet the claws are wanting on the outer toes, and only 

 rudiments of them remain on the middle ones. There are, however, pits marking 

 the places where the claws used to exist. The webbing between the toes is also 

 in this otter rudimentary; the beast altogether is very heavily built, with the 

 head very broad and powerful. It appears to be an otter bent on returning to 

 land habits." 



The spotted-necked otter (L. maculicollis) is one of the smaller 

 members of the group, with well-developed claws. It has a naked 

 nose, and very long hind- feet; the color of the fur 

 being blackish brown, with yellow spots on the 

 throat, chest and under parts. This otter has been obtained from 

 the Cape and Natal. 



Reference has already been made to the occurrence 

 of the common otter in the superficial deposits of 

 Europe, and also of an extinct species allied to the hairy-nosed THE I,EFT UPPER 

 otter in the Siwalik hills of India. In addition to these, there are 



. 



numerous extinct otters in the Pliocene and Miocene deposits of 



Europe, some of which appear to connect existing forms with the 



martens and their allies. Another is remarkable as appearing to 



indicate affinities between the otters and the civets, and thus serves 



to confirm the previously-mentioned evidence as to the existence of some relation- 



ship between the now widely divergent families of the weasels and civets. The 



otter-like animal is distinguished from all other members of the present family by 



having two molar teeth on each side of the upper jaw. 



Spotted- 

 Necked 

 Otter 



Extinct Otters 



F LESH-TOOTH OF 



AN EXTINCT IN- 

 DIAN OTTER 



The outer rid g e 

 6 of figure) is 



