The animal, crowned with a sun disc and uraeus and assuming the typical posture associated with the otter, is not - as has been falsely suggested - an ichneumon, but rather an otter. In the Old Kingdom it was depicted in its natural habitat, the marshes, and in Roman mosaics it is also still seen in the Nile landscape. The posture was interpreted by the Egyptians as that of prayer and thus he came to be associated with the goddess Wadjet of Buto in her manifestation as the eye of the sun.
)