The Majestic Sea Unicorn aka the NARWHAL - Monodon monoceros
How I have not covered this as many times as the platypus or sloths is beyond me, but the narwhal is the coolest cat in the sea. And by cat I mean cetacean and by the sea I mean Arctic ocean.
Narwhals are closely related to beluga whales (Delphinapterus leucas) and are members of the “white whale” family, Monodontidae. Given the meaning of “Monodontidae” (one-toothed), the narwhalian (it’s a word because I said so) origin of the name is clear. Both belugas and narwhals have no true dorsal fin, just a back ridge, no snout, prominent melons (used for echolocation), and reduced teeth (multiple simple teeth in the beluga, only two teeth in the narwhal). They’re both highly vocal, and have unfused cervical vertebrae (all other cetaceans have at least partially fused cervical vertebrae) as well.
Narwhals are more northerly in their range than their counterparts - belugas are both Arctic and subarctic, while narwhals stay in the coldest parts of the Arctic Ocean. However, they have significant overlap in their territories, and it’s believed that they’re able to interbreed, though the offspring are almost certainly sterile.
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The other major difference between the two is obviously the “horn” that almost all males and a some (15%) female narwhals possess. The horn is more accurately described as a tusk - it’s the projection of the left canine tooth through the upper lip, and not a bony or keratin-based growth. Despite what it seems like it might be used for, it’s is rarely used in aggression - instead it seems to be used primarily to measure salinity and other water metrics. The “tusking” behaviors that scientists once believed were males showing aggression towards each other appear to be an exchange of water and range data, with additional observation. Narwhal tusks are rich with nerve endings, up to 10 feet long (generally around 5-6 feet), and twisted in a helix pattern.
Of course, with how awesome it looks, European whalers used to pawn narwhal horns off as “Unicorn horns”. While the origin of the unicorn myth is probably related to oddly-antlered deer and mistaken identities of large goats and sheep, the narwhal absolutely shaped the mythos in the Medieval and Enlightenment periods. It wasn’t until the large-scale swindling of prominent figures that the narwhal tusks were unicorn horns that unicorns generally became portrayed as having a spiral (and very long) protuberance.
Maybe there’s more truth to the myth than they think...?
