Hello, Monday! Time to rev up the cute for Sea Otter Awareness Week!
This sleepy otter was filmed as it woke up from a nap in the protected waters of Elkhorn Slough, a wetland about 20 miles from the Aquarium. Sea otters have an apparently idyllic life: groom, eat, sleep, repeat... But what sounds like a vacation to us is anything but for these smallest of the marine mammals!

Sea otters spend hours every day grooming their million-hairs-per-square-inch fur to keep their personal drysuit up to code against 50-degree water. They must consume enough calories to fuel their furry furnaces as the ocean robs them of warmth—a female otter with a pup may need over a third of her weight in food from the seafloor grocery store to make ends meet. And sea otter beauty sleep is actually a critical energy-conservation suspended-animation session, incorporated into a busy day to power the next bout of diving, foraging and grooming.

So if you see a sleepy otter: stop, pull out your binoculars and watch from a distance to help respect the nap of these otterly impressive sea weasels!
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