I am sad to say that, due to a lack of contributions from readers, there will be no readers’ wildlife today. This is sad because we’ve kept it going for years with nary a break. I have begged and pleaded, to no avail. Either readers are out of photos or are unwilling to send them. My only leverage is to say this: I work hard to post here several times a day, and is it too much to ask for people who have good wildlife photos to sent them in? What happened to reciprocal altruism?
There: I’ve fired my last shot.
But here are three other shots, but not from readers but from the Proprietor (PCC[E]). They were taken last July in Svalbard. They show a pile of about 50 walruses (Odobenus rosmarus) with our ship in the background.
Click to enlarge!
Walrus are very social. They hang out in large tightly packed herds usually separated by sex. A group of walrus can generate so much heat that sometimes a cloud of fog will form above them!
Walrus tusks are in fact canine teeth that never stop growing. They use them to keep breathing holes open in the ice, to fight other walrus, and to help haul themselves out of the water and onto sea ice.
Great picture of the toothy grin. He must be dreaming serene thoughts—of impaling a rival!
Regarding wildlife pictures, I’d send them if I had them. I sincerely hope that this feature can continue.
Don’t get into a doom spiral here, boss. We love the wildlife section but it needn’t be every single day for WEIT to be excellent!
One problem is very few people actually have/own/take decent photography, even fewer those centered on wildlife. The standards here are (necessarily) intimidating b/c they’re all so good.
D.A.
NYC
Agreed. One thought might be to alternate travel pictures with wildlife pictures. Many of your readers have been everywhere—just like the song.
Some of the world cat photographs I sent could technically be wildlife as they seemed to roam freely 😁