Talk:Walrus

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	Walrus has been listed as one of the Natural sciences good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a reassessment.
October 10, 2007 Good article nominee Listed

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[edit] AFD count

[edit] What the hell?

"About 4 Atlantic walruses exist: they live in the Canadian Arctic, in the waters of Greenland, of Svalbard and of the western portion of the Russian Arctic."

surely this is wrong. RE:no its correct actually!

[edit] Not a lot of info

This article is not extremely informative. What about sizes, weights, is the male larger than the female, disposition, etc. Thedukeofno 06:26, 3 May 2006 (UTC) RE:no really the female is larger then the male is.thats how you can tell them apart!weird!

[edit] Influx of immature edits

There sure has been a lot of very juvenile edits recently in this one hasn't there?--Kiyosuki 03:07, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Which makes me wonder...I can understand that mental retardation would have a bunch of fools (coughretardscough) vandalising it, but why does Walrus get vandalized so often? ~GMH talk to me 19:22, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Because there is a new web meme similar to the LOLCats. See http://hamsterinthewheel.com/fatalfury/walrus-bucket/ and http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2007/05/the_walrus_buck.html

MikeSims 22:58, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Personally I blame the The Beatles. This could be a new Epigenetic effect of music causing genome damage and having this propagate forward in people's kids making them vandalise articles related to the original meme. They are totally awesome phat Walrus though..._{I need my coffee}.Ttiotsw 05:11, 30 May 2007 (UTC)RE:THATS REDICULOUSE!YOU CANT BLAME 'THE BEATLES'.THAT MAKES NO SENSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[edit] Chicago Walrus

When editing this page, this was under the Walrus in literature and music.

It just sort of stood out considering it was just...there. So I wanted to elaborate on it, maybe give it a link but I've looked on google for this and I've yet to find anything.

Could someone maybe elaborate on what Chicago Walrus is? Of if something...of whatever it is even exists? Otherwise, it should stay off the page for now. It just looks funky having the word "Chicago Walrus" just...there without any explanation.--68.233.141.149 04:28, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Mating

the article contains the following two statements: Walruses mate in the water and Mating is probably in the water. Now, which is it?

well, the former statement is always true as long as it happens sometimes. hey, the literature part might mention the walrus and the carpenter from through the looking glass, or Sea Vitch from Rudyard Kipling's The White Seal.

[edit] Classification

According to the article Pinniped Odobenidae is a subfamily of Pinnipedia while this article claims that Odobenidae is a family. Which is true? --EnSamulili 16:17, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

From the article: "Rosmarus originates in the Swedish word for walrus." Are we sure about that? The Swedish word for walrus is "valross", clearly related to "walrus" but seemingly not to "rosmarus". --193.11.222.179 17:03, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Researching this right now (for an entry on rosmarus in la.wikt) — it's possible that 'rosmarus' might have been a Swedish word for walrus that is no longer in use. I did find that the Hungarian seems to be rozmár (though that probably isn't the original word). In Old Icelandic on word was, apparently, rosmhvalr, from which tongue-twister 'rosmar-' is easy to deduce—tho I still haven't run across evidence of it having a form in Swedish yet. —Muke Tever talk (la.wiktionary) 22:49, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Tusks

Do both male and female walrus have tusks? I've never seen a tuskless walrus past infancy, but it just occurred to me that the females probably have absent or smaller tusks...

Yes, they have smaller tusks. Indium 03:23, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Feeding

There needs to be an update on feeding habits. Walruses kills and eat seals. How much of the diet consists of seals depends on the individual. This found from http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/miljo/article1192874.ece I've also read about this elsewhere, but can't remember where.

greetings,

Walruses eat mostly inverts such as clams. An average size male is going to eat around 75-80 pounds of food a day. They also eat fish and squid. They have highly specialized whiskers, or vibrissae, which they use to sift through the ocean floor to find their prey. They can actually use their vibrissae to pick up clams and they use incredible suction action to remove the body of the clam from the shell. It was once beleived that walruses used their tusks to crack open the shells. It is now more commonly accepted that they use their tusks to protect their mouth and throat area, much like sled runners, as they glide along the ocean floor.

[edit] AfD

MY NAME IS JAKE SMITHERS, and Walruses are my SPECIALTY! This page has been nominated for deletion; the discussion is ongoing at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Walrus. Please do not remove the notice at the top of the article page. It's important that it remain while the discussion continues. You may wish to express your opinion in the appropriate place. John Reid 02:09, 10 March 2006 (UTC) I'll close and remove that afd tag everytime it's put here due to WP:SNOW. -- ( drini's page ☎ ) 03:14, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

I just wanted to say whoever keeps putting that picture of the comical walrus in, please stop. Whenever people come to Wikipedia, they would probably most likely want to see a real walrus, not a comical picture.--Sidious1701 01:01, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Etymology of Walrus and Rosmarus

Here is an old article on this subject. The old word is Rosmhval (as pointed out here), where "hval" means "whale", and "Rosm-" is believed to refer to red or brown. Apparently there are variants "Rosmal" ("mal" being "cod") and "Rosmar" (said to be used in Trondheim). From the latter Olaus Magnus is credited with coining the latinized form "Rosmarus" in "Historia de gentium Septentrionalium variis conditionibus" in 1555. The Online Etymology Dictionary refers to "Walrus" as being from Dutch, but that the Dutch in turn was probably a folk-etymological variant of "hrosshvalr". So the given etymology seems incomplete. --BluePlatypus 12:52, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

"Rosmarus originates in the Swedish word for walrus." -- this is not correct. The Swedish word for walrus is valross, nothing like rosmar. Whatever the writer of this part intended, it's not getting through. I am removing the sentence for now. 138.227.189.9 13:59, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

As this derivation of the word "walrus" ("from Dutch: wal meaning "shore", and r(e)us meaning "giant"") is clearly incorrect, I've edited the etymology in accordance with the Oxford English Dictionary entries on "walrus", "morse" and "rosmarine" (all of which mean "walrus"):

Walrus:

[probably a. Du. walrus (walros). Compare (i) LG. walross, G. walross (earlier also walruss, walrusch), Sw. hvalross, valross (valruss), Da. hvalros (earlier also hvalrusk), walrus; (ii) OE. horschwæl, early mod.G. rosswal, russwal, Norw. russhval, walrus, ? OFr. rohal, rohart, rochal (whence med.L. rohanlum, -allum) walrus-ivory; see RUEL.

The forms under (i) appear to be later than those under (ii) from which they perh. arose (? in Du.) by metathesis on some analogy such as that of Du. walvisch whale.

The interpretation of formation (ii) as ‘horse-whale’ (zoologically improbable) appears to be only one of the various popular etymologies that have influenced the forms of the word. Ultimately a confusion, either within or outside the Scandinavian languages, has perhaps taken place between ON. hrosshvalr a kind of whale, and rosmhvalr walrus. The latter is related obscurely to ON. rosmall, Norw. rosmaal, rosmaar, Da. rosmær, -er, -ar walrus, whence the scientific specific name rosmarus. See ROSMARINE2. Some scholars have connected rosm- with ON., Icel. rostungr walrus, and assumed relationship of both with ON. rau{edh}r RED. (Cf. RORQUAL and OHG. ros(a)mo redness.) This is zoologically possible, but it seems more likely that rosm- is a corruption of some non-Teut. word: cf. MORSE.]

Morse:

[Origin uncertain. Cf. Old Russian morz´´ (Russian morz), Saami morsâ, Finnish mursu, although these are all attested only later. Cf. French morse (1618, rare before the late 18th cent.; attested earlier in Middle French as mors (1540), and morce (c1570 in morce marin: see note below)).

Rosmarine:

[f. mod.L. rosmar-us (16th cent., ad. Da. rosmar), or It. and Sp. rosmaro, Pg. rosmar; the ending may have been suggested by morse marine.] 192.168.2.102 00:11, 12 January 2007 (CET)

[edit] Morphology of Walrus skull

This section contains no facts at all, and only link to an outside web page. I think this link could be kept in the link section. The picture could sit at another section, and have a description, or be removed. Either add facts and information to this section, or delete it.Shandolad 08:08, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Major re-write?

This article could really use a major redo by someone who has done a lot of taxonomy articles and/or a walrus expert. I tried to consolidate the redunant info but it still needs a lot of help.

[edit] Walruses are no joke!!

As a champion of the Walrus, I find this article completely unacceptable. As of 12/22/06 it says the following:

"Pacific walruses spend the summer north of Santas Workshop in the Arabian Sea "

Somebody delete this junk. I concur that the Walrus entry in Wikipedia needs a complete re-write from a Walrus expert.Let's show some repect for these gentle and wonderful creatures. Walruses are no joke people!!

RamOnTheRun 11:30, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, what you spotted was some vandalism. It was placed on 12/21/06, and has been removed. Stopping vandalism is an ongoing task; if you're interested in helping fight vandalism, check out WP:VAND for more information. Thanks, --TeaDrinker 18:40, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] conservation status

Given the global warming in the Arctic, perhaps the conservation status should be changed from "Least concern"DGG 20:37, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Maybe, but that is for the IUCN to decide, not us. Sabine's Sunbird talk 10:22, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] mistake

The males reach sexual maturity around 678000 years yet some as early as 7. This must be an error, i could not correct it because i do not know the real length of time. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dipse0 (talk • contribs) 20:01, 30 January 2007 (UTC).

Thanks for spotting it. It appears to have been vandalism (chaning that along with the size of the population in another section). I've gone ahead and fixed it. Thanks again, --TeaDrinker 20:54, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Also how is it possible for a walrus not to have a bladder. That seems made up. There is no reference.

[edit] Plural?

Walrie? Walruses? I'm confused. What is the actual plural form of Walrus? 172.194.248.143 22:44, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

"Walri" is absolutely incorrect as the plural for "walrus". The only words ending in "-us" that take "-i" in the plural are Latin masculine second declension nouns such as "alumnus" or "romanus", etc. The word "walrus" comes from the Old Norse for "Whale horse" [2]. The plural of "walrus", by any accepted standard, is "walruses". — Dave (Talk | contribs) 20:00, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The walrus in popular culture section

Like The Sorcerer's Apprentice, the walrus in popular culture section seems to be growing without clear indications of notability. Surely we don't intend to index every instance of a walrus appearing in music, television, film, or manuscript. I think a culling is in order. Thoughts? --TeaDrinker 05:34, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bladder problem in Trivia section.

The edit done 02:26, 10 October 2006 by IP Special:Contributions/65.95.155.238 [3] looks dubious. I vote cull. Ttiotsw 23:06, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

No, it's bs -- I'm deleting it. Walruses indeed have bladders.[4][5] --Xiaphias 07:49, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Not every reverence, surely but some notable ones such the poem by Lewis Caroll or the pokémon Walrein?- demonic phoenix 26 October 2007 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.83.80.3 (talk) 14:23, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Protection

Someone protect this! The Vandals are back...–Sidious1701_{(talk • email • todo)} 00:07, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Revisions

I tried to improve the article in several major ways - adding information and references, revising the language, attempting to organize it along reasonable biology oriented lines. I hope other editors and (more importantly) readers/users find these to be improvements.

Then, perhaps carried away, I went ahead and eliminated wholly all of the media references. I justify this in several ways:

• almost all were obscure and of no interest to anyone interested in the Walrus as a species. Those of some interest (e.g. the Farley Mowat reference) are too arbitrary and specific for general interest;
• there is no precedent for this kind of listing among any other animals, including other highly charismatic megafauna (see, e.g. polar bear or elephant or wolf), and I have a strong suspicion that if a listing along those lines appeared suddenly on those pages, those editors would eliminate it with great prejudice and celerity;
• there is nothing comparable among any of the other walrus pages in other languages;
• nobody seemed to mind the elimination of the "Trivia" section a couple of days ago, which actually included relevant information (e.g. the baculum data, and the fact that Savoonga calls itself the "Walrus Capital of the World" - a fully legitimate claim considering that walrus is and always has been a fundamental object of the local population's subsistence harvest).

If anybody feels VERY STRONGLY that these media references are important perhaps they can be tucked safely away under their own Walruses In Popular Culture article.

Fully welcoming feedback, Eliezg 07:55, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

It seems like a good move (see my comment above). --TeaDrinker 15:51, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Agreed.–Sidious1701_{(talk • email • todo)} 23:20, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA Review

At first glance, there appear to be some major issues with the GA criteria, most notably, a severe lack of reference citations. There are entire paragraphs, some entire sections, that appear unsourced. All information that is challenged or likely to be challenged should include a citation. This includes all figures, lengths, measurements, "ratings", and other key information. This would include things like, "There were roughly 200,000 Pacific walruses according to the last census-based estimation in 1990." (although this is clearly not everything). It looks like there's a long way to go before this article has enough citations. Dr. Cash 02:22, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Having conducted a more thorough review, I find that this article largely meets the Good Article criteria, and should be listed pending some minor revisions. It is well written, fairly easy to read, and well organized. I cannot see any major POV or stability issues with the article, either.

The article is still short on references in a few areas:

• 'Taxonomy and evolution': "A third, isolated population of walruses in the Laptev Sea is considered by some to be a third subspecies (Odobenus r. laptevi Chapsky 1940) and is managed as such in Russia, but this separation is not universally accepted."

It appears here that this statement contains a reference, in harvard referencing format (though not used correctly, since the harvard reference is in the same parentheses as the name). And I can't find 'Chapsky' listed in the references section below, so it's incomplete. Since the article uses footnotes instead, it's best to stick with one type of formatting instead of trying to combine two different referencing systems into one article.

• The first paragraph of the 'range and population' section.
• The first and last paragraphs of the 'Exploitation and status' section are also unsourced.
• Also, when external links are used in references, the full citation information should be included, not just the link. Include author, title, publisher, date of publication, and date that the URL was retrieved. This is so that, if the URL ever becomes a '404 not found', the information can still be used to track down the document to verify what is being cited, or to perform additional research.

Once this issues are addressed, this article can be promoted to GA status. I will place this on hold until October 10, 2007, though I suspect the issues will be addressed sooner,... Cheers! Dr. Cash 06:09, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

• With regard to the first point, I believe Chapsky 1940 is the binomial authority, and thus is usually not listed in references (in either Wikipedia or ordinary academic writing--these names are also frequently abbreviated, particularly in botany which only adds to the confusion). Note that Chapsky is perhaps more commonly spelled spelled "Chapski." --TeaDrinker 20:16, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

• Right, "Chapsky, 1940" is not Harvard referencing, it is the binomial authority. Similarly, the "complete name" of Pacific walrus and Atlantic walrus are Odobenus rosmarus divirgens (Linnaeus, 1785) and Odobenus rosmarus rosmarus (Islliger, 1815) respectively. I eliminated the Chapsky anyways, since binomial reference don't appear to be common on Wikipedia. Perhaps there is room in the taxobox. Regarding TeaDrinker's second point, there is (alas!) little consistency in Russian transliterations (see Wikipedia:Romanization of Russian to get really confused), even in the otherwise stickling universe of taxonomy. Thus, Chapski, Chapsky, Chapskii and even Tschapski are all encountered in the literature. But since he's been purged, it's a moot point. -- Eliezg 23:16, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I have gone ahead and added some refs to the first "exploitation and status" paragraph, the last seems well referenced now with Eliezg's work. The range and population section is now pretty well referenced, and I didn't see much more to add. I did a bit of rearranging to reference the first paragraph, although there was nothing there which was not already referenced in the body of the article. I also added information on the URLs which were originally stand-alone refs. I think this addresses the concerns above, and am looking forward to hearing more input about the GA status. Well done everyone! --TeaDrinker 20:39, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

The article looks good, and has been promoted. Cheers! Dr. Cash 00:29, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the review Dr. Cash! And also to everyone that contributed. Perhaps someday our baby will grow to become featured?.... best, Eliezg 01:57, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Culture

Do you think we should include walruses in popular culture? Demonic Phoenix 10:51 26 October 2007 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.83.80.3 (talk) 09:53, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

I added a section on walruses in folklore and culture, including Lewis Carroll's poem. Eliezg 23:03, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

RE:i dont beleive we should because there indangered!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.2.60.97 (talk) 20:46, 11 February 2008 (UTC)