Walruses are characterized by the presence of large tusks in both the male and female. This skull was cast from a specimen whose tusks are among the largest ever recorded.

Walruses are large. They can weight from 900 to 3700 pounds and vary in length from 7 to 8.5 feet in length.

Walruses feed on animals that reside of the bottom of the ocean or in the sediments that coat the bottom. They usually hold the shelled organisms in their lips and ingest the fleshy parts by powerful suction, discarding the shells.

Occasionally, walruses prey on fish, seals, and young whales. They are capable of holding down seals and small whales with their flippers and tearing them apart with their tusks.

Walruses are extremely gregarious. Often they haul out on land or ice floes in herds of up to several thousand individuals lying in close physical contact.

Courtship behavior usually consists of several mature bulls competing for the exclusive mating rights to a herd of cows. They use a variety of tactics to attract females that include extensive singing and vocal displays. Occasionally, during courting, males engage in physical combat, trying to injure each other by stabbing their tusks into the neck region of the other.

Walruses have been exploited by humans for thousands of years. Native peoples have harvested them for their meat, skin for shelters and kayak coverings, and ivory for tools and weapons.

Size: 26"L, 11"W wide, 8"H Origin: Artic Ocean