Hobbies And Interests
Lifestyle of the Walrus
Walruses have an interesting lifestyle that affects their mating and reproduction habits. When it is not mating season, males and females live separately. They are migratory animals, going north during the summer and south in the winter, though they tend to spend their entire life in the polar or near-polar regions. Males are hierarchical, with the dominant males being the most aggressive and physical with other walruses.
Mating Season
Mating season for walruses is during the winter, from December to March. It is during that time that the males and females will form a common herd. It is important to be among the top males in the herd as females will only mate with one male and have one calf. And since the gestation period is so long, many of the available females are pregnant with a calf during mating season.
Gestation &Birth
It takes about 16 months from conception of a walrus calf to birth. For the first few months the walrus blastocyst is in a suspended state, and does not implant inside the female's womb until about one year before birth. Another mating season will come and go before the mother will give birth. The female walrus will go out onto an ice flow to give birth to her calf.
The Young Walrus
Mothers of a herd will gather together with their calves and form nursery herds. This allows the mother to raise its calf with mothers milk without being bothered by males wanting to mate with them during the upcoming mating seasons. It takes about 18 to 24 months for a calf to be fully weaned off of mothers' milk and it will be another six to eight years after that for walruses to be mature enough to reproduce.