Igor (walrus)

Igor (born 1982 or 1983 – 11 April 2013) was a male walrus that lived in the Dolfinarium Harderwijk, where he was also subject of scientific research. He had played international draughts against world champion Ton Sijbrands. Igor also featured in the television show Animal Crackers with Dutch comedian André van Duin. Near the end of his life Igor fell ill, lost the will to eat and suffered from his shoulderjoint. After his condition further deteriorated the Dolfinarium decided to euthanize him. His remains were sent to the faculty of veterinary medicine of Utrecht University for further investigation.

Subject of research

As well as the other walrusses at the Dolfinarium Igor was the subject of scientific research. Igor participated in research concerning the functioning of walrus whiskers. With his whiskers Igor was able to differentiate between circles and triangles and showed this by shaking his head in different ways. Igor was able to recognize the shapes until they reached the size of the tip of a pen. Which showed that walrus whiskers have a similar sense of touch as human fingertips. Another study investigated the effects of drilling for oil and gas on walruses by subjecting Igor to different noises by letting him wear headphones.

Walrus

The walrus (Odobenus rosmarus) is a large flippered marine mammal with a discontinuous distribution about the North Pole in the Arctic Ocean and subarctic seas of the Northern Hemisphere. The walrus is the only living species in the family Odobenidae and genus Odobenus. This species is subdivided into three subspecies: the Atlantic walrus (O. r. rosmarus) which lives in the Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific walrus (O. r. divergens) which lives in the Pacific Ocean, and O. r. laptevi, which lives in the Laptev Sea of the Arctic Ocean.

Adult walruses are easily recognized by their prominent tusks, whiskers, and bulkiness. Adult males in the Pacific can weigh more than 2,000 kg (4,400 lb) and, among pinnipeds, are exceeded in size only by the two species of elephant seals. Walruses live mostly in shallow waters above the continental shelves, spending significant amounts of their lives on the sea ice looking for benthic bivalve mollusks to eat. Walruses are relatively long-lived, social animals, and they are considered to be a "keystone species" in the Arctic marine regions.

Walrus (disambiguation)

In addition to the animal, Walrus may refer to:

Individuals

Songs

Transportation

Aviation

Maritime

The Walrus

The Walrus is a Canadian general interest magazine which publishes long-form journalism on Canadian and international affairs, along with fiction and poetry by Canadian writers.

History

Creation

In 2002, David Berlin, a former editor and owner of the Literary Review of Canada, began promoting his vision of a world-class Canadian magazine. This led him to meet with then-Harper's editor Lewis H. Lapham to discuss creating a "Harper's North," which would combine the American magazine with 40 pages of Canadian content. As Berlin searched for funding to create that content, a mutual friend put him in touch with Ken Alexander, a former high school English and history teacher and then senior producer of CBC Newsworld's CounterSpin. Like Berlin, Alexander was hoping to found an intelligent Canadian magazine that dealt with world affairs.

Before long, the Chawkers Foundation, run by Alexander's family, had agreed to provide the prospective magazine with $5 million over five years, and the George Cedric Metcalf Charitable Foundation promised $150,000 for an internship program. This provided enough money to get by without the partnership with Harper's.

Igor

Igor may have the following meanings:

Igor (Discworld)

The Igors are a recurring set of characters in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series of novels. They are members of a clan of servants from the region of Überwald, all of which are named Igor.

Origins

The Igors are based partially upon Mary Shelley's Frankenstein's monster, and partially upon the hunchbacked assistant Fritz in the original Universal and Hammer film versions.

Appearance

While Igors are born in the normal fashion, the clan's strong tradition of surgery usually means that by the time they would have grown to maturity in the natural way many of their body-parts have already been swapped around repeatedly, mostly within the clan.

All Igors have stitches, but these appear to be more like clan markings than actual repairs. The male members of the Igor clan traditionally lisp (though sometimes some forget), are considered very good catches for any young lady (it is probably best not to wonder why), and their daughters tend to be very attractive (according to the Hollywood tradition of beautiful lab assistants). In Making Money, it is shown by Hubert's Igor that their lisping is actually just for show, because people "expect it." The female members (Igorinas) tend to not show their stitches and can be very attractive in conventional human standards, although they usually wear one or two subtle rings of stitches to show allegiance to the clan. Igorinas usually share the talent of the males, but sometimes are denied as much access to their work owing to deep-rooted traditional sexism. They also generally do not lisp as much.

Igor (character)

Igor, or sometimes Ygor, is a stock character assistant to many types of Gothic villains, such as Count Dracula or Dr. Victor Frankenstein, familiar from many horror movies and horror movie parodies. Although Dr. Frankenstein had a hunchback assistant in the 1931 film Frankenstein, his name was Fritz; in the original Mary Shelley novel, Dr. Frankenstein has no lab assistant nor does a character named Igor appear.

Origins

Dwight Frye's hunch-backed lab assistant in the first film of the Frankenstein series (1931) is the main source for the "Igor" of public imagination, though this character was actually named "Fritz". The sequels Son of Frankenstein (1939) and The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942) featured a character named "Ygor", played by Bela Lugosi. This character, however, is neither a hunchback nor a lab assistant, but a blacksmith with a broken neck and twisted back. He reanimates the Monster as an instrument of vengeance against the townspeople who attempted to hang him for grave-robbing. He survives a near-fatal gunshot and appears in the next film in which his brain is placed in the Monster's body.