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Beneath these very ice sheets sit deposits of oil, the lubricant to your way of life, and the demise of hers. But her emotions are more immediate. She lost her pup at sea. There just hasn't been enough sea-ice along their journey. In an attempt to reach land, she couldn't properly tend to him, and sea currents separated them.

To conserve oxygen, walruses can slow their heart rate considerably when diving up to depths of 330 feet. They can remain under water for 30 minutes.

Walruses consume millions of tons of creatures on the sea floor. In so doing, they stir up the sea bed and spread nutrients around. This practice is what makes the Bering Sea so biologically bountiful.

I hope these paintings will in some way inspire you to investigate these organisms further. Their wondrous forms and capabilities are often overlooked and underappreciated. Imagine the tapestry that would color your world if you could communicate using sonar (yet still be able to learn human sign language) like a dolphin, smell with the intensity of the Polar Bear, understand chemical signals like the Honey Bee, navigate up to 600 miles from memory like the Desert Elephant, or utilize the earth’s geomagnetic fields to swim 800 miles like the Green Sea Turtle. The true complexity of the communication between most organisms lies in realms we still know relatively little about. The descriptions for each painting include facts, interviews, and...