Q 01/05

What is the walrus's scientific name?

A) Ursus maritimus

B) Odobenus rosmarus

C) Monodon monoceros

D) Phoca vitulina

Answer · why

B) Odobenus rosmarus

Odobenus rosmarus. Linnaeus first filed the walrus with the seals, under Phoca, in 1758 and later moved it in with the manatees.

Q 02/05

What is the term for a walrus leaving the water to rest on ice or land?

A) Breaching

B) Hauling out

C) Spyhopping

D) Logging

Answer · why

B) Hauling out

Hauling out. Walruses seldom do it alone: herds of thousands pack a beach or an ice floe side by side, and the crush of bodies helps each animal hold ...

Q 03/05

The walrus's genus name comes from Greek words meaning what?

A) Fin-foot

B) Sea-giant

C) Tooth-walker

D) Ice-biter

Answer · why

C) Tooth-walker

Tooth-walker. The name records the sight of a walrus hooking its tusks into the ice and heaving its bulk up out of the water.

Q 04/05

The Dutch word behind 'walrus' is usually read as meaning what?

A) Whale-horse

B) Water-ox

C) Ice-bear

D) Tusk-beast

Answer · why

A) Whale-horse

Whale-horse. Dutch seems to have flipped an older Norse name, 'horse-whale', and Old English had the same idea in its own word for the animal, horschw...

Q 05/05

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

A) Grampus

B) Selkie

C) Mereswine

D) Morse

Answer · why

D) Morse

Morse. It is the older English word: 'walrus' only arrived from Dutch in the 1650s, and morse still has cousins in French morse and Finnish mursu.