Newspaper

Pastel artwork

Emma says: Extinction means that there are none of them left, not many animals, like the dinosaurs that are all gone. Some endangered animals are the spider monkey and the tiger. I am mostly interested in the sea otter. I wonder if there was once an animal that was like the sea otter but is now extinct? I wonder what it would be like if we had dinosaurs today? Maybe we do, turtles, crocodiles and rhinos could all be dinosaurs.

Sean Bell replies: There were lots of fossil weasel type animals (the family that the otters are a part of). One I know of for sure is called Potamotherium, but there should be others. Weasels were well developed by the Oligocene-Miocene, about 25 Million years ago (something like that!). Crocodiles are one of the two very close living relatives of the dinosaurs, but there is an even closer one. The next time a magpie wakes you up or you eat a piece of chicken, you're seeing what became of one group of the dinosaurs (the raptor group). For something really close, look at a picture of one of the big flightless birds like an emu, ostrich, rhea or cassowary (there may be ranches or zoos nearby where you can see them up close). Except for the feathers and arms, they look almost identical to some of the dinosaurs.

Emma asks: The people that sail on the sea are killing the sea otters. Is there anything else these sailors could eat instead of the sea otter? If there is, then they wouldn't have to kill the sea otters and they wouldn't be endangered.

Emma says: I decided to draw the sea otter because I am studying it. I am studying it because they are endangered. The sea otter is endangered because people kill them for food.