the.com/walrus
a two-ton mustache that decided gravity was someone else's problem.
means A large Arctic marine mammal with two long tusks, prominent whiskers, and a thick blubbery body, related to seals and sea lions.
from From Dutch 'walrus,' likely a playful reshuffling of an older Norse-rooted compound — Old Norse 'hrosshvalr' meaning 'horse-whale.' Somewhere along the line the two halves seem to have swapped places, so the 'horse-whale' became the 'whale-horse,' which is why the modern word carries a faint echo of 'whale' (Dutch 'wal-') stitched to 'horse' ('-rus'). The exact path is a little blurry, but the sea-horse-whale spirit survived the scramble.
- tusks
- Three-foot teeth used as ice-climbing pickaxes
- vacuum mouth
- Sucks clams from shells like a fleshy shop-vac
- whiskers
- Hundreds of bristles detect food in pitch black
- blush trick
- Skin turns pink when warm, gray when cold
- sleep float
- Inflates throat pouches to nap upright in water
walrus haul-outs of svalbard — arctic island group where thousands of walruses gather on ice floes, largest concentration in the world
odobenus rosmarus divergens — pacific walrus subspecies, 40,000+ individuals tracked by noaa in the bering sea