when you think of unicorns, what do you picture? a sunny forest glade full of snow-white pointy horses prancing around and farting glitter everywhere? well, that’s very Lisa Frank of you and all but YOU’RE WRONG. because (unlike dragons) unicorns actually do exist! but they don’t prance about in the forest harassing virgins.
no, they inhabit the icy waters of the far nothern seas, gorging on deep-sea squid and occasionally getting eaten by Polar Bears!
they may not be magical, but they’re rad as hell! it’s-
they PROBABLY don’t harass virgins, anyway. it’s not like there’s studies on that.
the Narwhal is a toothed whale that lives in the frozen wasteland of the arctic circle. their name is really really fun to say, especially if you draw it out. narwhaaal. try it! narwhaaaaal. fun! their name comes from the Old Norse “Whal”, meaning “Whale”, and “Nar”, meaning “Corpse”.
yup, the name literally means “corpse whale”. this is probably because early viking explorers thought that the Narwhal’s mottled grey back looked like a drowned sailor who’d been in the water for a while. gross! vikings were not even in the general vicinity of messing around.
unless we’re talking about the football team! har! SPORTS.
Narwhals max out at about 18 feet long and 3,500 lbs, putting them firmly in the category “smedium”. (we’re talking about whales here, remember.) they are closely related to the Beluga whale, which will get its own article at some point. but the most remarkable thing about Narwhals is their magnificent and dubiously magical tusk.
the tusk’s gentle spiral and soulful luster make it look exactly like the unicorn horns of legend (more on this later), but it’s actually… a really fucked-up tooth! (surprise!) that’s right, Narwhals have exactly two teeth in their weird beaky mouths, kind of where your canine teeth are in your own mouth. and in males and about 15% of females, one of these two teeth just goes completely fucking nuts and grows straight out of the Narwhal’s face.
and you thought hangnails were bad.
this tooth-turned-tusk is not exactly a compact accessory, either. this dental nightmare can be ten feet long, or over half again the length of the entire Narwhal! (imagine their toothpaste budget. yikes!) this tusk is light, flexible, and fairly sharp, though it’s too fragile for the Narwhal to use as a weapon. (humans sometimes make swords out of them, but these are really just for decoration. “hey, look at me! I have sword made out of whale face! fancy!”)
so what are these tusks actually used for, if they ain’t for stabbin’? well….
we don’t actually know for sure.
take note kids, there are still mysteries at large in the world.
scientists used to think that male Narwhals used these tusks to duel for females, but a) no one’s ever seen two Narwhals stabbing each other, b) the tusks are way too fragile for fighting anyway, and c) why would some female Narwhals have tusks, then? (unless WHALE LESBIANS). but recent studies have revealed that the tusk is just PACKED with nerve tissue, revealing a very surprising possible use for this overgrown tooth.
basically, scientists are now thinking that the Narwhal’s tusk may be an enormous antennae that can sense everything from pressure to water temperature and salinity. imagine if you knew every time the pack ice was about to freeze over because your tooth told you! it’s a pretty weird function, but it works just fine for the Narwhal.
if you ask real nice, they’ll give you the time and temperature.
this ability to sense when seawater is about to freeze would actually be very useful for the Narwhal, because they’re a bunch of ice-spiting daredevils even by arctic standards. Narwhals rely on pack ice to protect them from Killer Whales and Polar Bears, their main predators. And while scooting around under gigantic ice sheets is an effective way to keep predators off your defenseless fleshy tail, it can all go south pretty fast if your breathing holes freeze over unexpectedly.
but Narwhals are well-equipped for this icy lifestyle! aside from their wondrous tusks, they have a thick layer of blubber under their skin to keep them warm. a LOT of blubber. like, up to 40% of their entire body mass! they need the insulation, because they regularly dive nearly 5,000 feet into the frozen depths in search of the squid and deep-sea fish that they eat.
talk about a chilly lifestyle.
but let’s talk about unicorns for a bit! Europe has been obsessed with pointy magical horses since the Middle Ages, and they feature heavily in stories and art even today. of course, unicorns are a fake made-up animal and not real, but Middle-Ages Europeans didn’t know that. and it’s a factor that Norse traders, who damn well knew what a Narwhal was, took heavy advantage of.
Narwhal tusks sold as ‘unicorn horns’ were worth more than their weight in gold to European Royalty. seriously. in the 16th century, Queen Elizabeth I was given a carved and bejeweled Narwhal tusk ‘unicorn horn’ that was worth as much as an entire fucking castle at the time. Norse traders made out like bandits for CENTURIES, thanks to the Narwhal. I bet they laughed all the way to the bank.
not that Middle-Ages European Royalty didn’t deserve it.
but Narwhals aren’t doing so well these days, and it’s because they’re incredibly vulnerable to climate change. the sea ice is freezing over later and later every year, leaving Narwhal populations who depend on this ice cover vulnerable to predators and starvation.
there are still over 100,000 Narwhals in the northern seas, but these real-life sea unicorns need protection from climate change to continue to thrive. hopefully, humans can act soon enough to keep the arctic frozen and the Narwhal swimming free. because a world without Narwhals is not a world that I want to live in.
they’re better than unicorns because they’re real.
thanks for reading! you can find the rest of the Weird Biology series on my tumblr here, or check out the official archive at weirdbiology.com!
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img1- National Geographic img2- imgdealix img3- National Geographic Kids img4- Yandex.com img5- World Wildlife Fund img6- travelandliesure.com img7- Warped Speed img8- eclecticeccentricity
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