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Walrus - ODOBENUS ROSMARUS
Class: Animals with Milk Glands (Mammalia)
The Name "Walrus": "Walrus" comes from the Germanic words "wal ross," meaning "whale horse."
Location: North circumpolar.
Habitat: Shallow coastal waters where there are ice floes
Description: The brown coat of hair can be quite thin, and in older individuals the skin is completely bare. Insulation is provided by a layer of fat about two to three inches thick. There are many stiff whiskers across the snout, no external ear, and the upper canines form two tusks that can reach a length of three feet, causing the entire structure of the cranium to be altered. The other 18 to 24 teeth are similar to each other. The walrus male grows over twelve feet long, and weighs up to 2600 pounds, with the female 80% of the length and 50% of the weight of the male.
Behavior: This gregarious species lives in large groups. It spends much of the day sleeping on the ice. It usually flees if attacked, but there have been cases of walruses attacking the boats of Eskimos. A cow, in particular, will vigorously defend her young. It feeds largely on mollusks, which it may wrench from the seabed with its tusks.
Reproduction: Females breed every other year, and after an eleven or twelve-month gestation, one or two young are born from April through June. The females become sexually mature at four to five years and the males at about seven years.
Go to the Carnivora Page to learn more about the all the meat-eating animals.
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