These Animals Hold Hands While They Sleep
wipe out: to destroy or get rid of something completely
Sea otters are one of the few non-primate mammals that use tools. They float on their back, place a rock on their chest, and crack open clams against it. They don’t use just any rock. A sea otter often has a favorite rock and carries it for years. The rock lives in a baggy pocket of loose skin under one of the otter’s front legs. The same pocket holds food the otter collects on diving trips.
When sea otters sleep, they often hold paws so the current does not pull them apart. A floating group of resting otters is called a “raft.” Sometimes they wrap themselves in kelp to anchor them in place.
Unlike seals and whales, sea otters have no blubber. The only thing keeping them warm in cold seawater is the densest fur on Earth. They have more than a million hairs in every square inch.
That fur almost destroyed them. For more than a century, hunters chased sea otters across the North Pacific because their pelts were worth a fortune. By 1911, they had nearly wiped out the species, and fewer than 2,000 animals were left.
That year, four countries signed a treaty to stop the hunting. Slowly, the sea otters came back. Today there are about 128,000 of them. The recovery is real but fragile. Oil spills, sharks, and warming oceans all still threaten the species.
Sample sentences
The flood wiped out half of our crops in one afternoon.
One bad investment can wipe out years of careful saving.
The new café down the street wiped out the old bakery’s lunch business in a few months.
