Walrus

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Walrus images (Odobenus rosmarus) - stock photos & facts on this huge whiskered pinniped with impressive tusks

Conservation status | Vulnerable
Scientific classification | Kingdom: Animalia > Phylum: Chordata > Class: Mammalia > Order: Carnivora > Clade: Pinnipedia > Family: Odobenidae > Genus: Odobenus > Species: O. rosmarus
Binomial Name | Odobenus rosmarus
Subspecies | Odobenus rosmarus rosmarus, Odobenus rosmarus divergens, Odobenus rosmarus laptevi (debated)

The walrus, Odobenus rosmarus, is a large flippered marine mammal found in the Arctic and sub-Arctic seas of the Northern Hemisphere. Walrus are pinnipeds - pinni means wing or fin, and ped means foot. They live in shallow water by ice floes or land, and migrate in the spring and fall following their food source - clams, snails, crab, shrimp and worms. Of the three types, the Pacific walrus, Odobenus rosmarus divergens, are more abundant than the Atlantic walrus, Odobenus rosmarus rosmarus, or the isolated Odobenus rosmarus laptevi which is found only in the Laptev Sea. The walrus is important to indigenous Arctic peoples, who have hunted the walrus for its meat, fat, skin, tusks and bone. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the walrus was the object of heavy commercial exploitation for blubber and ivory and its numbers declined rapidly. Its global population is recovering, although the Atlantic and Laptev populations remain at historically depressed levels.

Bulls grow to 12 feet long and weigh up to two tons, cows grow to nine feet and weigh around a ton. Walrus have a distinctive pink to cinnamon brown color, when in the water they are a paler shade of brown, when they come on land they pump blood to their skin for warmth and look pinker. Both male and female have long curving tusks, which are canine teeth made of ivory. Surrounding the tusks is a broad mat of stiff bristles, mystacial vibrissae, which givesthe walrus a characteristic whiskered appearance. The vibrissae are attached to muscles and are supplied with blood and nerves making the vibrissal array a highly sensitive organ capable of differentiating shapes. Walrus walk on all four fins and can move surprisingly fast on land.
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