Odin the walrus had a number of fishy treats in preparation for his dental check at his zoo in Germany, but he turned decidedly grumpy once the inspection began.
It was Odin's first experience of the inventory as he only arrived at Hagenbecks zoo in Hamburg last month from his home in Moscow.
Although he has settled in well, he was very unimpressed when a keeper prized open his mouth to check his teeth and tried to manoeuvre himself out of the way. Odin eagerly chomped through his fishy starter, main course and dessert, reaching up to his full height to get every mouthful.
Tipping the scales at an estimated 3,700 lbs, it takes a lot of fish to please a walrus the size of Odin.
To check Odin's teeth were healthy, his keeper had to get his mouth wide open which took quite some tussle.
Odin's mood soon soured when the fish stopped coming and the dental check-up was all he had to look forward to.
Tusks on a walrus like Odin can grow up to 1m in length, and males tend to have larger tusks than females.
The tusks are used for keeping breathing holes in the ice open, for fighting and for helping the walruses haul themselves out of the water on to an ice floe.
In the wild, walruses live mostly in shallow waters above the continental shelves, spending significant amounts of their lives on the sea ice looking for molluscs to eat.
Source : dailymail
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