Otter Scent Marking Territory

I was out in the remote Florida marshland looking for interesting bird behavior like this osprey carrying off a fish when I saw a disturbance up ahead and filmed an otter acting oddly. After a little research I found out this was otter communication. Otters are highly social animals and communicate with other members of their species as they travel through scent marking. Olfactory messages are posted regularly at the same places along a circuit usually near the bank of a stream or impoundment like along this levee. At these spots otters mark their territory by vigorously scratching rubbing and rolling on the ground matting down vegetation and scraping up absorbent grass clumps and squirting urine and defecating on them. Like other members of the weasel family otters have well-developed anal scent glands at the base of their tails. Their feces are anointed with scent from these glands which conveys information to other otters. You can recognize these sites by their flattened vegetation, numerous piles of scat and fishy odor. Also look for twists of grass. Otters will mark mounds with scent from planter pad glands on their hind feet. Each planter pad located in the center of the foot has four glands. This is why they gather absorbent materials and shape them with their hind feet as we see in this clip. In this way biologists believe otters communicate identities and reproductive and social status.