winter otter hide

anyone ever see a winter hide like this , I've seen this on coon in fall tick bites , but never on a otter
from the head down to the tail

Had a few like that a couple years ago around head and neck area.

I had a couple like that over the years. I assumed from fighting/breeding

Ive seen several like that. As novatrapper1 said I think that from fighting...probably that occurs during breeding. My guess is the darker marks are older bites.

That's alot of bites.

Was it a female?
This late they can be bit up pretty bad.

Roy did you find any bbs? Some of those spots look like bb trauma plus a couple like you fleshed bbs of hide taking fat off.

Those look like tick bites.

That’s what I’m thinking.

I've never seen a tick on an otter and my otter live in tick country. There is a type of spotting that I believe is genetic. Sometime when I get the energy I'll share a photo. But what I see in this pic appears to be old scars. I never see otters fight but females do get bit up on the neck during the rut.

this was a big male , it was caught in January , no bbs were found in it

The 2 in the middle are small males all were caught in about 2 week time in different locations if you zoom in the two middle ones have marks all over they were given to me by land owner that got them in his pond.