60 Fun Facts About Walrus

What is the walrus's scientific name?

It is the only living member of the family Odobenidae, which once had at least twenty species.

What are the two recognised walrus subspecies?

A Laptev Sea population was once proposed as a third but has proved to be of Pacific origin.

The genus name Odobenus comes from Greek words meaning what?

It refers to walruses using their tusks to haul themselves out of the water.

The word 'walrus' comes from Old Norse elements meaning what?

Old Norse hrosshvalr, 'horse-whale', appears to have been passed to Dutch and north German in inverted form as walros.

What was the archaic English word for the walrus, still used in French?

It came via Slavic from Finno-Ugric; the coincidental resemblance to Latin morsus, 'a bite', helped the walrus's monster reputation.

Which two pinnipeds are the only ones larger than the walrus?

Big Pacific bulls exceed 2,000 kg; the Atlantic subspecies runs 10-20% lighter.

Genetic evidence suggests all pinnipeds descend from an ancestor closest to which modern animals?

The walrus lineage split from the eared seals 15-20 million years ago.

How long can a walrus tusk grow?

Tusks are elongated canines, present in both sexes, weighing up to 5.4 kg; the biggest males with the biggest tusks dominate.

What do abrasion patterns show walruses actually use to dig prey from the seabed?

The tusks are dragged through the sediment; they are for fighting, display, and hauling out onto ice.

Roughly how many whiskers does a walrus have?

They sit in 13-15 rows, can reach 30 cm and are sensitive enough to distinguish shapes 3 mm thick.

How thick can the skin be around the neck and shoulders of a male walrus?

Beneath it lies up to 15 cm of blubber; old males' skin turns nearly pink.

Why can a swimming walrus appear almost white?

On land, young are deep brown and adults cinnamon; the pinkish flush returns as blood flows back to the skin.

What lets a walrus sleep while floating vertically in the water?

It works like a flotation bubble.

The male walrus's baculum, or penis bone, is the largest of any land mammal at up to what length?

It is the largest both in absolute terms and relative to body size.

What are the 'bosses' that male walruses develop?

They are a secondary sexual characteristic that appears with maturity.

How long is a walrus's gestation?

That includes three to four months of delayed implantation; calves are born April to June and can swim from birth.

Walruses have the lowest reproductive rate of any pinniped. How often, at most, does a female give birth?

Ovulation is suppressed until the calf is weaned after more than a year of nursing.

Walruses are the only pinnipeds known to do what?

Calves may stay with their mothers for up to five years, and adult males have been seen caring for orphans.

What was the name of the oldest known walrus, who died at SeaWorld Orlando aged 49?

Wild walruses usually live 20 to 30 years.

Through which narrow passage do several hundred thousand Pacific walruses migrate each spring and summer?

They move from the Bering Sea into the Chukchi Sea and gather in beach aggregations of tens of thousands.

What is the walrus's preferred food?

It eats more than 60 genera of sea-floor animals, and 97% of the Pacific walrus's diet is benthic invertebrates.

How does a walrus get the meat out of a clam?

Its vaulted palate allows suction as low as -118.8 kPa underwater; captives at Hagenbeck sucked a 2.3 kg plug out of their pool.

Walruses at Tierpark Hagenbeck demonstrated their suction by doing what?

The plug sat at a depth of 1.1 metres.

What is the deepest dive recorded for a walrus, in Smith Sound?

They usually stay shallow over the continental shelf; near Svalbard the deepest dives averaged just 31 m.

Which two animals are the walrus's only natural predators?

Neither relies on walrus, and both mostly target calves; a cornered walrus can fatally gore a polar bear.

How do polar bears typically hunt walruses?

Direct attacks are rare; a walrus that draws a bear into the water may kill it with its tusks.

Walruses have been observed preying on seals as large as which 200 kg species?

They also occasionally take Brünnich's guillemots and may scavenge whale carcasses.

As of 2018, the global walrus population was estimated at how many mature individuals?

Pacific numbers were above 220,000 in the aerial surveys of 1975-85 and about 129,000 in 2006.

By 2018, Svalbard's once nearly wiped-out walrus population had recovered to roughly how many?

Norway banned commercial hunting in 1952 when they were almost gone.

Walruses once bred on which isolated sandbar 160 km southeast of Nova Scotia?

Colonies of 7,000-8,000 lived in the Gulf of St Lawrence into the 18th century before commercial harvest destroyed them.

Settlement of which island wiped out a distinct walrus population around 1213-1330?

By the time of the 1240 manuscript Konungs skuggsjá, walruses were already extinct in Iceland and Norway.

Which peoples are still permitted to kill small numbers of walrus each summer?

Traditional hunters used everything: meat, fermented flippers, tusks for tools, hide for boat covers and gut for waterproof parkas.

According to explorer Nordenskiöld, which part of the walrus did European hunters consider a delicacy?

The rest of the meat they ate only out of necessity.

Wally the walrus, first seen off Ireland in 2021, wandered as far south as which Spanish city?

He then went back north via the Isles of Scilly and Ireland to Iceland.

Freya, the walrus who toured the North Sea, was shot in August 2022 near which capital city?

Norwegian authorities killed the five-year-old female, citing danger to the crowds she attracted.

Stena, seen in Finland in 2022, was the first walrus recorded where?

Unable to find enough food there, she became emaciated and died as rescuers tried to move her.

Between 1815 and 1954, how many vagrant walruses were recorded in Scotland?

England and Ireland managed one each in the same period.

In a Chukchi Raven myth, what does the evil spirit's daughter become when thrown off a cliff?

Her tusks are said to be formed from trails of mucus or her long braids.

In Chukotka and Alaska, the aurora borealis was believed to be dead souls playing ball with what?

The aurora was a world for those who had died by violence.

Most of the 12th-century Lewis Chessmen are carved from what?

A few pieces turned out to be whale teeth.

Lewis Carroll's poem 'The Walrus and the Carpenter' appears in which book?

The pair trick a great many oysters into being eaten; real walruses eat almost no oysters.

What do the Walrus and the Carpenter trick into being eaten in Carroll's poem?

Carroll got the appetite for bivalves right, though these particular ones barely feature in a wild walrus's diet.

The Beatles' 'I Am the Walrus' was written by which member?

The 'walrus' is a nod to Carroll's poem; the song was the B-side of 'Hello, Goodbye' in 1967 and briefly banned by the BBC.

'I Am the Walrus' first appeared in which 1967 Beatles project?

It reached numbers one and two on the UK chart simultaneously via the single and the EP.

In Kipling's 'The White Seal', the walrus Sea Vitch has no manners except when?

He is 'the big, ugly, bloated, pimpled, fat-necked, long-tusked walrus of the North Pacific'.

Who first depicted the walrus as 'ros marus' on the 1539 Carta Marina, a name Linnaeus later adopted?

It was probably a Latinisation of the Slavic morž.

A 28,000-year-old walrus fossil was dredged from which bay?

Fossils on the US Atlantic coast reach as far south as North Carolina.

Which walrus feature does it share with sea lions rather than true seals?

It swims like a true seal, though, with sinuous body movements, and like them has no external ears.

How does the IUCN list the two main walrus subspecies?

The Laptev population is Data Deficient; global trade in walrus ivory is restricted under CITES Appendix III.

What is the Inuktitut word for the walrus?

Nanuq is the polar bear and natsiq the ringed seal.

Roughly what share of a walrus's body weight is its hide?

A 500 kg hide from a Franz Josef Land bull implied a total weight of at least 2,300 kg.

Which Norwegian manuscript of c.1240 calls the walrus 'rosmhvalr' in Iceland?

Place names such as Hvalfjord and Hvalsnes may mark former walrus breeding grounds in Iceland, Greenland and Norway.

In which sea does an isolated walrus population, once proposed as a third subspecies, live?

O. r. laptevi was described in 1940 but has since been shown to be of Pacific walrus origin; it numbers perhaps 5,000-10,000.

How thick can the blubber layer beneath a walrus's skin be?

Young walruses are deep brown and grow paler with age; old males in particular can become nearly pink.

How much does a walrus calf typically weigh at birth?

Calves are born during the spring migration and can swim at once; mothers nurse for over a year and the young may stay up to five years.

Up to how much can a walrus tusk weigh?

Tusks are elongated canines found in both sexes; the largest-tusked males usually dominate social groups.

During which months do male walruses rut, sharply cutting their food intake?

Males may be sexually mature at 7 but usually do not mate until fully grown at around 15; females can ovulate from 4-6 years.

Roughly how many Pacific walruses are harvested each year in Alaska and Russia combined?

About 42% of that figure are animals struck and lost; several hundred more are taken annually around Greenland.

Which part of the walrus did traditional hunters ferment and store as a delicacy until spring?

Hide became rope and boat coverings, oil was rendered for light, and intestines made waterproof parkas.

Around which Arctic landmass do most Pacific walruses summer, north of the Bering Strait?

Smaller groups of males summer in the Gulf of Anadyr and Bristol Bay; the whole population winters in the Bering Sea.