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Each summer, for reasons we humans don't particularly understand,

about 12,000 male Pacific walruses pack themselves onto the beaches

of Round Island, off the southwest coast of Alaska in the Bering Sea. That's some nine million

pounds worth of walrus on a two-mile long island. For our metric friends, that's around

four million kilos on a 3-kilometer stretch.

Known as rather gregarious creatures, the walruses may simply enjoy one another's company,

although they do occasionally jab a neighbor with their long tusks to assert dominance.

Or perhaps they're trying to stay warm in the far below freezing temperatures.

Whatever they're up to,

the female walruses are far away and root back from their yearly migration north, with calves in tow.

Whatever the reason for this month's long male bonding, it presents an ideal setting for scientists to study the mammal.

In the years since research began, biologists have learned a lot about this hardy creature of the Arctic,

whose name possibly roots from a sort of funny combination of the Dutch words for horse and whale.

Walruses are the second largest pinniped, which is an order of animals that also include seals and sea lions.

Only the elephant seal can grow larger.

Walruses are also the only member of the order to possess tusks, two especially long upper canines that can reach lengths of three feet at nearly a meter and weigh 12 pounds each,

that's over five kilos. They primarily use their tasks as built-in tools for managing their icy environments. They can hook their tasks into the ice to pull themselves out of the water,

or just take a break from swimming, or when underwater, break breathing holes in the ice.

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