Charlie the Unicorn!

Sorry sorry sorry!! I know I said I was going to post yesterday, but then I got swamped at work and just didn’t have the time. But today is a fun post. It’s about unicorns!

Well, actually it’s about the unicorn whale, the Narwhal.

The Narwhal is a cute little whale (if 3,500 lbs is little) found in the Atlantic and Russian portions of the Arctic. The most conspicuous feature of these animals is their large tusks. Inuit legend claims that one day a woman was hunting whale. She tied the rope to her harpoon around her waist and after harpooning a large Narwhal, she was pulled into the freezing water. She was transformed into a Narwhal herself and her long twisted hair became the tusk. Cute idea. Besides the obvious issue with the story, tucks are also only found on male whales.

So a tusk, huh? Of course I am going to ask a scientist’s favorite question: why?

First, what is this tusk? It is actually a left-spiraled incisor tooth that projects from the left side of the upper jaw. They are usually between 2-3 meters long (7-10 ft) and weigh about 10kg (22 lbs).

The most obvious reason for the evolutionary purpose of these tusks is for sexual bravado. A bigger tusk makes you a better man because you can fight with it and it looks pretty. This would mean that the tusk is important in creating social hierarchy within the group and would determine social ranks. Usually when this is the case, an animal uses its “bravado tool” – it shows it off or fights with it. The Narwhal has never really been seen fighting with its tusk. It hasn’t even been seen using it as a tool to break ice.

Recent studies by a Harvard professor found that the tusk is covered by millions of highly sensitive neurons. These neurons act as the whale’s environment detector. They are able to detect changes in temperature, pressure, salinity and water particle concentration. These are all things that are very important to survival.

The science community is still not sold on the sensor theory as the sole reason for these tusks. I think it is a little of everything - classic, “my rod is bigger than yours and I can feel things with it.”