“A walrus's tusks are giant teeth that keep growing and can reach about three feet long.”
Walruses are large Arctic pinnipeds that use sensitive whiskers to locate clams and other seafloor prey. Tusks help with social display and movement around ice, while crowded herds alternate between offshore feeding grounds and haul-out sites on sea ice or land.
By An Nguyen · Published · Updated
Browse photographs of walrus across habitat, behavior, anatomy, and life stages.
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Core article
A closer look at habitat, diet, behavior, reproduction, and conservation.
The walrus (Odobenus rosmarus) is one of the largest flippered marine mammals, an Arctic coastal giant known for its ivory tusks, bristling whiskers, and deeply wrinkled hide. Behind the bulk is a specialist: it uses hundreds of sensitive whiskers to find clams on a dark seafloor and then vacuums the meat straight out of the shell. Highly social, walruses pile onto ice and beaches by the thousands — and it is exactly that ice they are now losing.
The walrus's scientific name means "tooth-walker," and the tusks explain why: these continuously growing upper canines, up to three feet in big males and present in both sexes, are used to haul the huge body out of the water, chop breathing holes in ice, and settle dominance — not, as often assumed, to dig for food. Around them sits a broad snout carrying 400 to 700 stiff, extremely sensitive whiskers (vibrissae) that map buried prey in the dark. A blubber layer up to six inches thick — nearly a third of the body weight — handles the cold, and blood flow to the skin shifts the animal's colour, from pale grey in cold water (blood pulled inward) to sunburned pink when basking. Walruses even have inflatable throat pouches that act as internal life-jackets, letting them sleep upright in the water.
The walrus is circumpolar, living in the shallow coastal waters of the Arctic and sub-Arctic across Alaska, Canada, Russia, Norway (Svalbard), and Greenland. Its habitat has two requirements: shallow, productive water it can dive to feed on the bottom, and reliable sea ice or rocky beaches to rest ("haul out"), molt, and give birth on. The Pacific walrus in particular depends on the seasonal pack ice of the Bering and Chukchi seas, moving north and south as the ice advances and retreats.
For all their size and tusks, walruses eat small, soft prey — mainly bivalve mollusks like clams and mussels, plus snails, worms, sea cucumbers, and shrimp. On a dive of five to eight minutes and 30 to 100 metres, a walrus drags its muzzle through the sediment and locates clams by whisker-touch (it does not dig with the tusks). It then does something distinctive: rather than crushing the shell, it seals its lips over the clam and pulls its piston-like tongue back sharply, creating a vacuum strong enough to rip the soft body straight out, leaving the empty shell behind. A single feeding session can take in thousands of clams.
Walruses are extremely gregarious and rarely alone, hauling out in tightly packed herds of up to tens of thousands and lying physically piled on one another for warmth. The herds are loud — snorts, bellows, grunts, and, from males in the breeding season, an eerie bell-like chime produced underwater with the throat pouches. Rank runs on size and tusk length: the largest, longest-tusked animals hold the best central resting spots, and disputes are usually settled by posturing and tusk-thrusting rather than bloody fights.
Walruses reproduce more slowly than almost any other pinniped. Mating happens in midwinter water, and gestation runs a long 15 to 16 months, including delayed implantation so the calf arrives during the spring migration. The single calf, born on the ice at around 140 pounds, can swim almost at once, and the mother–calf bond is intense — she fends off predators and even carries a tired calf on her back as she swims. On very fat-rich milk the calf grows fast but nurses up to two years, and females breed only every three years. Wild walruses can live 30 to 40 years if they escape polar bears and orcas.
The walrus is Vulnerable, with a declining trend, and its most immediate threat is climate change. The Arctic is warming several times faster than the global average, and vanishing summer sea ice removes the resting platforms Pacific walruses need above their shallow feeding grounds. Forced onto crowded coastal haul-outs instead, they suffer deadly stampedes — a sudden noise from a plane or predator can trigger a panic that crushes hundreds of young calves — and the extra distances they must swim to reach food drain their health and breeding success.
To learn more about the walrus and the impacts of a warming Arctic, consult the following authoritative resources:
Kingdom
Animalia
Phylum
Chordata
Class
Mammalia
Order
Carnivora
Family
Odobenidae
Genus
Odobenus
Species
O. rosmarus
A walrus's tusks are giant teeth that keep growing and can reach about three feet long.
The name walrus comes from words meaning 'tooth-walker,' because it uses its tusks to haul out onto ice.
Walruses have hundreds of stiff whiskers that feel around the dark seafloor for clams.
A hungry walrus can slurp up thousands of clams in a single meal using strong suction.
A walrus's skin can look pale when it is cold and turn pinkish when it warms up in the sun.
Walruses are very social and pile together by the thousands on ice and beaches.
Select a question to reveal the answer.
A walrus is a large Arctic sea mammal with long tusks, bristly whiskers, and a thick, blubbery body. It belongs to the same group of flippered mammals as seals and sea lions.
Walruses live in the cold Arctic seas around Alaska, Canada, Russia, Greenland, and Norway. They rest on floating sea ice and on rocky coastal beaches.
Walruses mostly eat shellfish from the seafloor, especially clams. They use their whiskers to find food in the dark and strong suction to slurp the soft animal out of its shell.
Both male and female walruses have tusks. They use them to haul their bodies onto the ice, to show off to rivals, and to keep breathing holes open in the sea ice.
Walruses are huge. Big males can weigh over a ton and a half, more than a small car, while females are about half that size.
Walruses are listed as Vulnerable. Their biggest worry is climate change, because melting sea ice takes away the resting places they need near their feeding grounds.
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