An ice otter or snow otter (Lutra atlanticus lachrymosa) is a cold mustelid that live in the ice. It was a longer furred otter with blind eyes and icy pelt. It also is a singularly tragic animal -- it lives in the arctic oceans and seas for part of the year, swimming in their frigid waters and eating fish, until late autumn comes to the lower latitudes and the Ice Otters or Snow Otters head up rivers to inland lakes. There, they whelp their pups and begin the process of raising them. However, they only eat ocean fish and so swim back and forth from the lakes to the sea to get food for themselves and their offspring. As the ice begins to form over the lakes, the adult Ice Otters become trapped underneath it, with their pups up above it on shore. The effort of their journeys back and forth has already taken a physical toll on them, so the parents tire quickly in their efforts to get out of the ice, and they drown and die, one by one, calling until the end for their lost offspring; their cries are said to resemble the cracking of great sheets of ice. The young Ice Otters are thus left alone in the world, and have to make the trek to sea alone, but at least by this time they will be at the point in their development where this is just possible. Some survive, many do not, but the next year the process will begin again.
By Mythologysleuth or Cyclone62
The Ice Otters were long-furred, blind-eyed otters with an icy pelt. It lived in arctic waters, migrating upriver each autumn to raise its young in inland lakes. However, as it fed only on ocean fish, it made exhausting trips back to sea for food. When the lakes froze over, the adults became trapped beneath the ice, calling out like cracking ice sheets before drowning. Their orphaned pups, just old enough to travel, made the perilous journey to the sea alone—some surviving, many not—continuing the tragic cycle year after year.