On the off chance that any dotCommonweal readers were hankering for a break from the abortion debates, I thought I'd point out this great piece by Natalie Angier on the odobenus rosmarus, the only pinniped that walks with its teeth.

The first thing the walruses will do when they come over is start pushing at you, pressing their heads right into your stomach, he said. Dont let them get away with that. No matter how hard they push, you have to stand your ground.I stopped short, confused.If you dont stand your ground, youll be knocked over or backed against a wall in no time, Dr. Schusterman said.But but ... I sputtered. How was I supposed to stand my ground against an animal the size of a Honda Civic? This sounded less like friendly and playful than aggressive and possibly dangerous.Just push back on the snout with the palm of your hand and blow in its face, Dr. Schusterman instructed. A walrus really likes to be blown in the face.But suddenly there I was in the pen, time expanding as I watched Sivuqaq, a 2,200-pound adult male, roll toward me like a gelatinous, mustachioed boulder and head straight for my solar plexus. Somehow, either out of professional pride or rigid terror, I managed to stay standing and stuck out my palm; when Sivuqaq nuzzled against it, all my fears fell away. I stroked his splendid vibrissae, the stiff, sensitive whiskers that a walrus uses to search for bivalves through the seabeds dark murk, and that feel like slender tubes of bamboo. Then I blew in his face, and he half-closed his eyes, and I huffed and puffed harder and he leaned into my breath, all the while bleating and grunting and snorting for more.(...)Walruses are very gregarious, and they like to be near other walruses, said Chad Jay, who heads the walrus research program for the United States Geological Surveys Alaska Science Center in Anchorage. They like hanging out together, touching each other, socializing. Even when its hot and they have plenty of space, they prefer to clamber on top of each other and huddle together.Walruses want so much to be with other walruses that if there are no other walruses around, they will make do with the next available large object.Lee Cooper of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science recounted his 2004 expedition aboard a research vessel in the Bering Strait, when the crew came upon a number of calves that had somehow gotten separated from their mothers, and, oh, how excited the calves were to spot the ship and its staff, and how desperately they sought to climb aboard.They see this big red and white ship, they must assume its a big iceberg and the people moving around on it are something like walruses, Dr. Cooper said. Unfortunately, the ship was far from shore and lacked the means to serve as a rescue vessel, Dr. Cooper said, and the staff had no choice but to leave the young walruses behind.

And apparantly they are extraordinarily musical creatures.

Reporting in the December issue of the journal Animal Cognition, Dr. Schusterman and Dr. Reichmuth described their efforts to explore the extent of the walruss vocal talents, its capacity to invent acoustical sequences when given the cue.Experienced trainers worked with two 12-year-old walruses, Sivuqaq the male and a female named Siku (both names are Inuit), reinforcing the mammals behaviors by dispensing or withholding food rewards and demanding that the walruses strive ever harder to generate innovative sounds and sound combinations.The breadth of the walruses creativity exceeded all expectations, not only during training sessions but also during downtime. Dr. Reichmuth said one walrus figured out how to use a rubber toy in the pool as an instrument by pressing it against a window and blasting air through it until it sounded like a bugle. Soon two other walruses in the pool had learned to do the same thing.

Read the rest right here.