Alaska river otters featured in The New York Times

The Animal Behavior paper I have recently co-authored, titled "Coastal latrines as social information hubs and drivers of river otter fission-fusion dynamics", was featured by the New York Times as their weekly "Science Take" story.

The feature included a videoclip with footage obtained by our motion-activated camera traps, with funny narration by James Gorman and a short written story.

The videos illustrate the way coastal latrines function as centers of river otter social activity and show how river otters engage in a behavior we term the "poop dance", before and during defecation.

I was thrilled that my research generated such media interest and that we were able to expose such a wide audience to the fascinating social life of river otters.

A link to the study can be found here:

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/20/science/river-otters-socialize-at-the-latrine.html