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This evening, I came across an article about how some marine biologists have discovered that sea otters of Monterey Bay indulge in rape, murder and necrophilia.



According to Discovery News:

Sea otters – cute, furry, adorable, clams-wouldn’t-melt-in-their-mouths sea otters – have been observed forcibly copulating with, and in the process killing, juvenile harbor seals off California.

In an edition of the journal Aquatic Mammals, Heather Harris of the California Department of Fish and Game and colleagues document nineteen occurrences of this behavior in Monterey Bay between 2000 and 2002, leading to the deaths of at least 15 seals.


Harris and her colleagues describe one incident in vivid detail:

A weaned harbor seal pup was resting onshore when an untagged male sea otter approached it, grasped it with its teeth and forepaws, bit it on the nose, and flipped it over. The harbor seal moved toward the water with the sea otter following closely. Once in the water, the sea otter gripped the harbor seal’s head with its forepaws and repeatedly bit it on the nose, causing a deep laceration. The sea otter and pup rolled violently in the water for approximately 15 min, while the pup struggled to free itself from the sea otter’s grasp. Finally, the sea otter positioned itself dorsal to the pup’s smaller body while grasping it by the head and holding it underwater in a position typical of mating sea otters. As the sea otter thrust his pelvis, his penis was extruded and intromission was observed. At 105 min into the encounter, the sea otter released the pup, now dead, and began grooming.

On some occasions, they further note, otters would guard and copulate with the seals long after their victims had died -– as much as seven days afterward, in fact.

Bizarre as this behavior may seem, Harris and her co-authors point out that it is not dissimilar to standard sea otter mating protocol, in which males will often approach the female from behind, grip her around the chest with his forepaws, and grasp her nose or the side of her face with his teeth. Although the female frequently resists, generally the two eventually spin in the water, the male behind the female, until mating is complete.


READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE HERE.