Lutaris are definitely otters. Lutra lutra is the Eurasian otter's latin name, so it's probably a play off of that.
I hadn't actually thought of the getting his name checked. Yeah, it does seem like a good way to get a pet to poof. Shame, really. Also that people report pet names on whims. I've reported all of one. I found it in the pound, and it was a lot more overt than the above mentioned Chombussy.
I think it's funny what pets are popular or not, too! I've never really been a fan of shoyrus. They're okay, but nothing special, yet they're the most popular pet apparently. I'm not a huge krawk fan, though I've got one since I found a pirate one in the pound. **snipe!** I've thought about giving her away to someone else, but I've also thought about not. A few, like tuskaninis or moehogs, I think are kinda cute, but I wouldn't own one. And some like jubjubs or kikos or chias? No thank you. Not ever.
Randomly, though, I adopted an aisha because while I was playing on dress to impress I saw a custom of one that I thought was cute as could be, though I'd never really liked their looks before.
Also, looking at lost and pound, it seems like there are tons less painted pets than normal. Wonder if the extra slots means a lot of people went on adoption sprees, or if it is just that people are abandoning less of them. Shame that so many have names that guarantee they'll sit there forever. Seems there are hundreds that were just Species+Random number as their name.