Japanese otter
(Redirected from Japanese river otter)
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| phylum | Chordata | The Japanese otter (Lutra nippon) or Japanese river otter is an extinct species of otter formerly widespread in Japan. Dating back to the 1880s, it was even seen in Tokyo. The population suddenly shrank in the 1930s, and the mammal nearly vanished. Since then, it has only been spotted several times, in 1964 in the Seto Inland Sea, and in the Uwa Sea in 1972 and 1973. The last official sighting was in the southern part of Kōchi Prefecture in 1979, when it was photographed in the mouth of the Shinjo River in Susaki. It was subsequently classified as a "Critically Endangered" species on the Japanese Red List. On August 28, 2012, the Japanese otter was officially declared extinct by the Ministry of the Environment. It is the official animal symbol of Ehime Prefecture.
All river otters of Japan were described in the 19th century as a subspecies of the Eurasian otter, Lutra lutra whiteleyi. In the early 1990s, a comparison of mitochondrial cytochrome b of otters from Latvia and China, and a stuffed otter from Japan, made by Kōchi University, found that the Japanese otter belonged to a distinct species, which was named Lutra nippon. For more information, visit the Wikipedia entry. Get back to Otters |
| class | Mammalia | |
| infraclass | Eutheria | |
| order | Carnivora | |
| suborder | Caniformia | |
| family | Mustelidae | |
| genus | Lutra | |
| species | †L. nippon |
