Colin McMahon, age 12, of Lakewood, Ohio, for his question:

Does a walrus have other teeth besides his tusks?

Many readers enjoyed the same walrus movie and wrote to ask Andy the same question. Please do not feel peeved or grieved because only one reader could be selected. The answer is meant for everybody. And if you were smart enough to ask one successful question, you are smart enough to ask a million more. There is no limit to the number of questions, therefore no reason to feel sad or mad.

Daddy Walrus is a most impressive giant who rules his large family with regal determination. He can administer discipline with 1k tons of muscular might, plus a pair of ivory tusks which may be a yard long and weigh 11 pounds apiece. No doubt his tusks are his most important teeth, though he also has 16 regulation chompers in his mighty jaws. This gives him a total quota of 18 teeth.

Naturalists have observed some of the remarkable ways in which he uses his tusks. But nobody seems sure about what he does with his other teeth. Naturally a researcher might hesitate to investigate what goes on inside that giant mouth during the dinner hour. We know that he dines on clams and mussels, squids and seaweed. He uses his tusks to rake the crustaceans from the sea floor    but he does not use his chompers to crush or chew their tough shells.

Instead, he swallows them whole, usually with a helping of stony pebbles. Crushing and digestion take place in his remarkable stomach. Later, the gritty, indigestible fragments are ejected. Apparently his regular chompers have little or nothing to do, though they may be needed to do a little chewing on his seafood salads and vegetables.

The lordly walrus rules a family of several wives and their cubs, who remain close to their mothers for at least two years. The females are smaller than the male and have smaller tusks. They too have 16 other teeth. As a rule, several families form a herd of 100 or so and share a large ice floe or rocky island in the Arctic sea.

Much of their time. is spent in the water, foraging for food. All of them are excellent swimmmers and divers. When the bulky male takes a dip, he plunks in with an enormous belly flop and smoothly descends to perhaps 300 feet. After dinner, he  emerges at the edge of the ice    blowing vapor like a steam engine and dripping water from his whiskers. He uses he tusks like grappling irons to hoist his huge body aboard. For the next few hours, the whole herd flops around and enjoys a siesta.

Sometimes the mighty walruses rally to protect a cub from a hungry polar bear. When in the sea, sometimes they flee in panic from the dreadful killer whale. But their only serious enemy is man. In the past they were slaughtered for their precious ivory tusks. Nowadays, only Eskimos are permitted to kill them for food. However, it is estimated that their numbers are reduced to about half a million, and they multiply very slowly.