I just found out...the strangest thing about Lottie.

[LittleMissPanda]

I could have sworn that both Lottie and Lyle were otters. Ever since WW, with Lyle's debut, I thought he was an otter. Come to find out he's actually a weasel...yet Lottie is an otter...yet she is his niece... How? How can this be?

Ok let's see... Her parents must be otters. That would mean her father's brother (or mother's brother) is a weasel (Lyle) so then that would mean that one of Lottie's grandparents or both grandparents (from either the father or mother side) are weasels. All this thinking hurts my head! It's all so confusing, isn't it?

Lyle should have just been an otter, then it would all make sense. Or both he and Lottie should have just been weasels.

Pascal should be the only otter.

My head hurts... It's not worth thinking too much into this anyway! But still.... Lottie could very well be adopted.

 

[Licorice]

Some sites say Lyle is a weasel and some say he's an otter. He def has to be a weasel because it made sense for his first role in WW where he was a scam insurance salesman. Also he looks nothing like Pascal who is an otter.

Lottie being an otter makes no sense. Lottie and Pascal have two different tails. Even as a species they don't match. :/
She looks exactly like Lyle so I'm gonna guess this is a mistake on Nintendo's part?

 

[LittleMissPanda]

Some sites say Lyle is a weasel and some say he's an otter. He def has to be a weasel because it made sense for his first role in WW where he was a scam insurance salesman. Also he looks nothing like Pascal who is an otter.

Lottie being an otter makes no sense. Lottie and Pascal have two different tails. Even as a species they don't match. :/
She looks exactly like Lyle so I'm gonna guess this is a mistake on Nintendo's part?

It has to be a mistake, for sure. Wow, Nintendo... Didn't seem they thought it through with Lottie. :/

 

[pinkcotton]

What is Phineas? A seal?

 

[Mariah]

What is Phineas? A seal?

Sea lion.

- - - Post Merge - - -

Some sites say Lyle is a weasel and some say he's an otter. He def has to be a weasel because it made sense for his first role in WW where he was a scam insurance salesman. Also he looks nothing like Pascal who is an otter.

Lottie being an otter makes no sense. Lottie and Pascal have two different tails. Even as a species they don't match. :/
She looks exactly like Lyle so I'm gonna guess this is a mistake on Nintendo's part?

Pascal is a sea otter while Lyle and Lottie are river otters.

 

[LittleMissPanda]

Sea lion.

- - - Post Merge - - -


Pascal is a sea otter while Lyle and Lottie are river otters.

Yet Lyle is stated officially as a weasel. Wow these are some messed up family trees lol

 

[Mariah]

Yet Lyle is stated officially as a weasel. Wow these are some messed up family trees lol

Where? I'm seeing articles from 2005 talking about him being an otter.

 

[LittleMissPanda]

Where? I'm seeing articles from 2005 talking about him being an otter.

I read it on Nookipedia. But different sources do say different things.

 

[Barnabus_i_am]

I don't know why some sites claim that Lyle is an otter and others say he is a weasel, but Lyle looks like his niece. However, they honestly look like weasels. I actually have an animal crossing guide book (from 2013) so I'll see what species Lyle is stated to be on there. Lottie won't be on it, but she's definitely the same species as her uncle. It would make sense for Lottie to actually be a weasel, if her uncle is one too.

- - - Post Merge - - -

I just looked this up, apparently weasels and otters are actually from the same animal family... So it's possible there's some inter species relation between Lyle and Lottie.

 

[King Dorado]

maybe one of Lottie's parents is a weasel and the other is an otter....

dogs and wolves can breed together; we must assume then that weasels and ottters can as well... i'm sure Nintendo retained a weasologist in designing the game species on this point...

 

[Claude]

i'm sure Nintendo retained a weasologist in designing the game species on this point...

Hahahaha!

Well, it is a game about a village of animals who speak to you and each other and walk and wear clothes and live in homes, so anything is possible.

 

[That Marshal Fangirl]

This is so weird! I always assumed that Lyle and Lottie were otters, but...wow.

 

[LittleMissPanda]

I'm just glad I'm not the only one who noticed this little, how you say, family mishap :/

 

[nyx~]

Ok, all this time I have been thinking wrong. I thought Lottie was a weasel...

 

[Gaby]

"Although Lyle and Lottie have a difference in appearance from Pascal, all three characters are otters. Pascal is a sea otter while Lyle and Lottie are river otters"
That's what I found on an animal crossing wikia.

Regardless if they're sea or river otters, otters are from the subfamily lutrinae, which in turn is a branch of the weasel family Mustelidae.

Maybe an oversight from Nintendo but not really that far off, I guess.

 

[pocky]

Some sites say Lyle is a weasel and some say he's an otter. He def has to be a weasel because it made sense for his first role in WW where he was a scam insurance salesman. Also he looks nothing like Pascal who is an otter.

Lottie being an otter makes no sense. Lottie and Pascal have two different tails. Even as a species they don't match. :/
She looks exactly like Lyle so I'm gonna guess this is a mistake on Nintendo's part?

Lottie is definitely an otter. In the island escape game she gets abilities that make sense for an otter but not for a weasel. That being said it's totally weird. Lyle doesn't look like a weasel at all, but he looks like an otter. Lottie has the same body shape so I'm guessing that they're the same animal. The thing is that it doesn't really make any sense for them to be otters considering their roles as NPCs (in Animal Crossing the specie of the NPC usually corresponds with their role.) Whereas given Lyle's role in WW it makes perfect sense for him to be weasel.

Then Pascal complicates things even more. He is definitely an otter, but his tail isn't too otter-like to me (unless there is another type of otter I don't know about) he looks less like an otter than the other two, but shows more otter like behavior with the clams and given his role in the game it makes sense for him to be an otter whereas the other two don't really act like otters outside of the newly introduced mini game.

I wonder if they are maybe different species of otter? This is the one Im used to:

edit: I just read ACanelleNL's post and apparently they are different types of otters. For some reason I thought that Sea otters had the same type of tail. Got to learn something new!

 

[LittleMissPanda]

You know what I've been thinking....a little off topic too, but since in New Leaf Lyle mentions having daughters, it would have been so much cooler if Lottie were his daughter instead of niece. She really admires her dad and wants to continue the HHA business. As we all know: like father like daughter ^^