A Fine Walrus Skull with Tusks (1800 to 1900 North American)

Odobenus Rosmarus

38.00cm wide    24.00cm high    (14.96 inches wide  9.45 inches high)

In 1664 near the west end of St Pauls in the ‘Music House’ a collection of ‘rarities’ belonging to Robert Hubert was open to the public on ‘Monday’s and Thursday’s things of the sea; Tuesday’s and Friday’s things of the land’; the varied exhibits included ‘a sea morse of Greenland (which ) does sleep hanging on the rocks by the great teeth of the upper jaw’.
The largest and heaviest pinniped the male walrus is a huge animal. They swim quite slowly and use mainly their hind quarters for propulsion. They are good divers and feed on bottom living invertebrates particularly molluscs of which they consume only the soft muscular foot or siphon. How they extract these is still a mystery but it is thought to be through some form of suction.

A Fine Walrus Skull with Tusks
Odobenus Rosmarus
19th Century

Size: 24 cm high, 38 cm long – 9½ ins high, 15 ins long