Talk:Japanese otter

Duplicated article.
There is currently another article "Japanese river otter" on the same species. AnnaComnemna (talk) 14:33, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

1979 photograph
Where is the source for its being photographed in 1979? Better yet, where is said photograph? 96.29.208.25 (talk) 20:13, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

Lutra nippon and L. l. whiteleyi are not synonyms
According to this L. l. whiteleyi is still valid for the (also extinct) otter of Hokkaido, which was a subspecies of L. lutra, while L. nippon is a new species restricted to the three main southern Japanese islands. This makes sense because Hokkaido was connected to Sakhalin and the mainland during the Pleistocene but not to other islands in Japan. It also explains why the L. nippon name could be coined without breaking whiteleyi's precedence in the rules of taxonomy.

Source: Conroy, J., Melisch, R., & Chanin, P. (1998). The distribution and status of the Eurasian Otter (Lutra lutra) in Asia—a preliminary review. IUCN Otter Specialist Group Bulletin, 15(1), 15-30.

Menah the Great (talk) 11:45, 20 June 2022 (UTC)