I am otter-ly loved: The adorable image of a baby otter taking a nap on its mother's tummy as she swims across a bay

By Mail Foreign Service

Thanks, mum! The mother otter grasps her sleeping baby protectively as she peers at the camera during her swim across the Prince William Sound

Photographer Steven Kazlowski, 40, snapped the otters drifting across Saw Mill Bay, in Prince William Sound, off the south coast of Alaska.

The sound has more than 3,000 miles of shoreline and is home to around 70,000 sea otters.

Steven, from Seattle, United States, said he had to wait for almost eight hours before he got the snaps of the otters.

He said: 'I had watched this area for several days and I found a rock which I thought would make a great place to watch the otters from.

'I had been hiding there for about eight hours one day when I saw the otter with its baby drift by.


This is the way to live life: The baby was sound asleep in the sun


'It was fantastic that after all that time I was rewarded with these images.

'The baby was just sleeping in the sun as its mother she floated in the sound on her back.

'It was something I will never forget.'

Sea otters spend most of their time on their backs and propel themselves through the water by moving their tails and hind paws from side to side.

They float on their back while sleeping, resting or eating and use kelp or small icebergs to help them from drifting.

While on their back, they can crack open their meals and use their chest as a flat area to eat off.

Sea otters' fur is extremely dense with about 650,000 hairs per square inch and keeps them warm as they do not have insulating fat on their bodies.


source: dailymail