Walrus

Fascinating facts about the Walrus

• Pacific walrus bulls can tip the scales at over 2,000 kg (4,400 lb), dwarfing most marine mammals and rivaled only by elephant seals. The heaviest reliably measured male was 1,883 kg (4,151 lb) and 3.8 m long, confirming that true giants exist but are rare. Their tusks add another extreme, stretching up to 1 m (3 ft 3 in) and weighing as much as 5.4 kg (12 lb). Such mass and weaponry let bulls dominate haul-outs, defend against predators, and haul themselves onto ice, shaping the social hierarchy of Arctic pinnipeds.
• Walruses split from true seals 20-26 million years ago, then branched from eared seals 15-20 million years later, carving a distinct evolutionary path. Genetic clocks place the Atlantic and Pacific subspecies' divergence at 500,000-785,000 years ago, a blink in geological time that still yields clear genetic differences. This recent split explains why the two groups look alike yet differ in size, tusk length.
• Walrus mothers carry their embryos for 15-16 months, with the first three to four months spent in a suspended blastula stage before implantation. Calves arrive weighing 45-75 kg (99-165 lb) and can swim immediately, but females only breed every two years, giving the species the lowest reproductive rate of any pinniped.
• Walruses are notorious long-distance wanderers: between 1815 and 1954, 25 individuals were recorded in Scotland, one in England, and one in Ireland, with additional sightings later in the 20th century. Modern vagrants like "Wally" have been tracked from Ireland (March 2021) across Wales, France, Spain, back to the Isles of Scilly, and finally to Iceland.

Sources

Every fact above was checked against these pages, and kept only where one of them states it.

• Wikipedia

At a glance

About the Walrus

As the Arctic sun dips below the horizon, a lumbering silhouette emerges from the frozen tundra, its tusks glinting like ivory scimitars in the fading light. The walrus, a behemoth of the northern seas, moves with a deliberate slowness, its flippers propelling it through the waves with a gentle, almost languid, rhythm, as if savoring the icy waters that have been its home for millennia. Its very presence seems a testament to the enduring power of the wild, a reminder of the majesty that still lurks in the uncharted depths of our planet.

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