Why do walrus look the way they do? Why do they have such long tusks? Do they have other teeth? Do walruses migrate? We learn all about these majestic giants with Adam Ratner of the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, California.
Download our learning guides: PDF | Google Slide | Transcript
- Adult male walruses can weigh up to 4,000 pounds and females can weigh more than half that.
- Even when they’re born, they’re big. Baby walruses are 100 pounds at birth. They spend one to two years with their mothers before heading out on their own.
- They have long front flippers and can tuck their back flippers underneath them. They are able to kind of walk around up on land if they need to, but they’re more graceful swimming in the ocean.
- Walruses live in the far northern part of the world, above the Arctic Circle.
- They have two big tusks, kind of like elephants, that stick down from the front of their face and they have a mustache.
- They use those tusks to haul themselves up out of the water onto ice floes.
- In addition to their tusks, walruses have molars (flat teeth like the ones at the back of your mouth) that they use for chewing up clams, snails and other food they find on the seafloor. They use their flat muzzle and facial whiskers to rustle up their food.
- Walruses do migrate, but not very far. Most walruses follow the seasonal advance and retreat of the ice floes, but they remain entirely within the Arctic Circle no matter the season.
- The walrus sounds in this episode are courtesy of the Watkins Marine Mammal Sound Database, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the New Bedford Whaling Museum.
