Narwhal: A Useless Stick or a Magic Staff? (9 photos)

See for yourself: these are mysterious and beautiful animals, hard to find, easy to lose, and impossible to forget. They also possess almost supernatural powers, directly tied to their mystical horns.





The sorcerers crossed their wands.

Nature, however, views them differently. It is certain that narwhals are four-meter-long machines for processing sea creatures and fish into fat. And these animals do their job remarkably well. An adult animal can contain up to a ton of fat—a third of its entire body weight!



Think I'm fat? Count me.

Such reserves are not a luxury, but a necessity; without them, they cannot survive under the sea ice of the Arctic Ocean. Narwhals are inextricably linked to the ice floes, so the size of their range varies greatly depending on the season. In summer, they live in high latitudes, almost at the North Pole, and in winter, they migrate significantly further south and can even be found off the coast of Eurasia.





Sea Cavalry.

Even though it's dark under the ocean ice even during the polar day, this isn't a problem for narwhals, who rely on echolocation more than sight. Like bats, they emit high-frequency clicks and analyze the returning echoes with their keen hearing. Thanks to this ability, they detect schools of fish and shoals of squid from hundreds of meters away and never go hungry.



Echolocation also helps narwhals find openings through which to breathe. This is vital in conditions where most of the water surface is covered with ice.

However, many researchers believe that narwhals have another highly precise prey-finding device—their legendary horn. It's not really a horn at all, but a spiral tusk as thick as a wrist and nearly 2.5 meters long. Despite its impressive appearance, the horn is completely useless in combat or hunting, as it's structurally a normal tooth with pulp and nerves, and lacks enamel. But on its surface are as many as 10,000,000 nerve endings of unknown purpose.



This guy has a narwhal horn and he's happy. I envy him so much!



Narwhal tooth/horn in cross-section.

Such a sensitive "nerve" tooth may be useful to the narwhal, allowing it to subtly sense the movement of water around it, as well as its temperature and salinity. And due to its large size, the horn is incredibly sensitive to the slightest changes in the environment.



Sometimes, very rarely, a narwhal grows two tusks at once. However, these tusks greatly complicate the animal's life, so in most cases, it does not survive to adulthood.

However, not everyone agrees with the sensory theory. Proponents of an alternative theory believe that the horn is simply an extremely long tooth with no special purpose. Its sole purpose is to demonstrate the male's age and physical dominance, and it has no practical use. Narwhals do not use their tusk during ritual fights. They push and hit each other with their tails, and using a spear would result in the death of the animals, which is obviously unnecessary for the population. Therefore, the "horn" doesn't need to be particularly strong—it just needs to be able to withstand its own weight. However, there are observations of narwhals stunning fish with their horns with sharp blows, which makes hunting easier.



Interestingly, horns are found almost exclusively in males and only in a small percentage of females. The tusk grows in a spiral and always twists counterclockwise.

But that's not important to us. The most important thing is that sea unicorns are much cuter than horses with horns on their foreheads. And they are living, real creatures that can be seen off the coast of our country. And that's worth a lot.



Or maybe it's a little different...