The latin name Odobenus rosmarus means “tooth walking sea horse.” Walruses haul out on ice and land, sometimes in large herds. They can travel long distances by swimming or by riding ice floes but their seasonal movements are poorly understood.
Walruses feed mainly on small organisms on the ocean floor, whereas almost all other pinnipeds feed primarily on highly mobile fish and crustaceans. Walruses are extremely social animals, and when on land or ice they are normally found in tight groups ranging in size from a few individual up to thousands.
Two sub-species are recognized based on morphological characteristics and on mitochondrial DNA divergence: the Pacific walrus (Odobenus rosmarus divergens) and the Atlantic walrus (Odobenus rosmarus rosmarus).
Walruses have a discontinuous circumpolar Arctic and sub-Arctic distribution and are mostly found in relatively shallow continental shelf areas. The Atlantic walrus ranged historically from the central Canadian Arctic in the west to the Kara Sea in the east, north to Svalbard and south to Nova Scotia.
The Pacific Walrus normally ranges from the Bering and Chukchi Seas, which constitute the center of its range, to the Laptev Sea in the west and the Beaufort Sea in the east, with vagrants south into the North Pacific Ocean to Japan and southcentral Alaska.
Walrus (Odobenus rosmarus)
