Otter Otter Otters are carnivorous mammals in the subfamily Lutrinae. The 13 extant otter species are all semiaquatic, aquatic or marine, with diets based on fish and invertebrates. Lutrinae is a branch of the weasel family Mustelidae, which also includes badgers, honey badgers, martens, minks, polecats, and wolverines. The word "otter" derives from the Old English word "otor" or "oter". This, and cognate words in other Indo-European languages, ultimately stem from the Proto-Indo-European language root *wódr̥, which also gave rise to the English word "water". An otter's den is called a holt or couch. Male otters are called dogs or boars,
To the River Otter To the River Otter "To the River Otter" is a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Though its date of creation is uncertain, it was possibly composed in 1793. The poem deals with the image of the River Otter, near Coleridge's childhood home in Devon. Editions of Coleridge's works edited by James Dykes Campbell (1899) and by E. H. Coleridge (1912) determine that the "To the River Otter" is from 1793. However, J. C. C. Mays (2001) argues that there is no certainty for the earlier dating as the poem does not appear in Coleridge's 1796 collection of poems and was