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A blubbery beau flashes its massive tusk — actually an extension of a tooth — to fight off other males and ultimately impress potential mates, according to Graham and other researchers at Arizona State University’s School of life Sciences. The Scientists came to the, well, horny conclusion after they analyzed 35 years of tusk data from 245 adult male narwhals. They say when it comes to mating frequently, big horns are “one of the most charismatic structures in biology,” according to the study. “The narwhal tusk is a sexually selected signal that is used during male-male tusking contests,” Graham said.

The surprising ‘belwhal’ DNA reveals beluga-narwhal hybrid by Philip Robinson This article is from Creation 41(4):19, October 2019 Three unusual-looking whales were caught in Greenland by Inuit hunters in the late 1980s—unlike any the Inuit had ever seen. Each was an even grey colour, with flippers like those of belugas, and tails like those of narwhals. One of their skulls was preserved; a DNA study has now identified it as a first-generation hybrid between a male beluga and a female narwhal—a ‘belwhal’. One of their skulls was preserved; a DNA study has now identified it as a first-generation hybrid between...

A band of beluga whales took in a lost narwhal and made it one of their own, researchers said after discovering the lone whale swimming and playing with its new friends. The narwhal was discovered in the St. Lawrence River, more than 620 miles from its normal habitat, swimming with about dozen of St. Lawrence River belugas. Narwhals normally live in the Arctic near Canada, Greenland, Russia and Norway, CBC News reported. GREMM said the narwhal was believed to be a juvenile, swimming with mostly male belugas. "It behaves like it was one of the boys," Robert Michaud, the president...

On Jan. 22, a young woman in a socially conservative corner of southwestern Ohio received a blast email from Stephanie Cutter, a deputy campaign manager for Barack Obama. Years earlier, the young woman had registered for updates on Obama’s website, completing a form that asked for her email address and ZIP code... But Cutter’s note was different. She boasted of a new administration rule that would require insurance plans to fully cover contraception as part of the president’s health care reform law, and encouraged her recipients to see the policy as reason to rally around Obama’s re-election. “Think about how...

The frigid waters of the Arctic are home to near-mythical creatures, sometimes called the "unicorns of the sea" for the long, ivory tusk that spirals several feet out of the top of their heads. Worldwide there are only about 50,000 to 80,000 narwhals, as they are more commonly known, with about two-thirds of these whales summering in the fjords and inlets of Nunavut in northern Canada. Scientists are hoping to learn more about narwhals through a new effort to track them as they move around the icy waters of northern Canada, as well as more about how declining amounts of...

'Arctic unicorns' in icy display Remarkable footage of elusive narwhal has been captured. A BBC team used aerial cameras to film the creatures during their epic summer migration, as they navigated through cracks in the melting Arctic sea ice.

These unusual whales are rarely glimpsed in the fleeting moments they break through the ice that covers their underwater world. But spectacular aerial footage captured by the BBC shows how the groups of narwhal, with tusks up to eight feet long, crowd their way through narrow gaps between the ice sheets as they attempt a dangerous spring migration in the search for food. It comes as new research is also revealing how these rare and strange-looking mammals are under threat from changing conditions in the Arctic. Scientists studying the impact of climate change on the Arctic have concluded that narwhals...

At least 200 narwhal whales in Canada's Arctic, trapped by winter ice that is setting in around them and facing starvation or suffocation, must be culled, officials said Friday. Hunters from the village of Pond Inlet on Baffin Island discovered the animals trapped near Bylot Island, about 17 kilometers (10.5 miles) from Pond Inlet, on November 15, and checked on them periodically. The local hunters are allowed to harvest only 130 whales each year for food, according to standards set by the federal department of Fisheries and Oceans. But department spokesman Keith Pelley told AFP: "It's unlikely the animals are...

Today, Harvard School of Dental Medicine (HSDM) researcher Martin Nweeia, DMD, DDS, answers a marine science question that has eluded the scientific community for hundreds of years: why does the narwhal, or “unicorn,” whale have an 8-foot-long tooth emerging from its head, and what is its function? Nweeia, a clinical instructor in restorative dentistry and biomaterials sciences at HSDM, will be presenting his conclusions at the 16th Biennial Conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals in San Diego. The narwhal has a tooth, or tusk, which emerges from the left side of the upper jaw and is an evolutionary mystery...

"Why would a tusk break the rules of normal development by expressing millions of sensory pathways that connect its nervous system to the frigid arctic environment?" says Nweeia. "Such a finding is startling and indeed surprised all of us who discovered it." Nweeia collaborated on this project with Frederick Eichmiller, DDS, director of the Paffenbarger Research Center at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and James Mead, PhD, curator of Marine Mammals at the National Museum of Natural History of the Smithsonian Institution. Nweeia studied the whales during four trips to the Canadian High Arctic. In the past, many...