A Walrus Gives Me a High Five #shorts

#walrus #kpassionate #shorts
A young, female walrus gives me a high five with her flipper. There are a lot of things I love about this video. First, you can see the problem solving going on as the walrus initially wants to use her left flipper to give me a high five. While we have trained her to use both flippers, in this instance I asked her to use her right. It took her a moment but she figured it out pretty quickly!

Secondly, it's a common misconception that only male walruses have tusks. The walrus in this video is a female named Lakina and you can clearly see she has tusks as well! In the wild, walruses will use their tusks almost like ice picks to help them climb onto ice flows. In fact, their scientific name Odobenus means "teeth walker" and comes from observations of walruses using their tusks to pull themselves out of the water.

Lastly, when Lakina holds up her left flipper you can clearly see that it has all the major skeletal elements of the forelimbs of land mammals! Walrus fore flippers have five digits of about equal length and each digit has a small and inconspicuous claw or nail.

Lakina was born at the Aquarium du Quebec in 2016 and I was one of the lucky marine biologists with the privilege to work with her! During that time, this walrus participated in several important research projects into the metabolism of walruses and this information was used to enact laws and policies aimed at protecting their cousins in the wild.

Recently, Lakina and her brother Balzak have moved to Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium where I now have the opportunity to work with them again after several years. She looks great and I can't wait to see more of her and her brother Balzak in the near future!

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent Metro Parks Tacoma’s positions, strategies, or opinions.

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