Behold Rare Footage of What Narwhals Actually Use Their Tusks For

Narwhal tusks are the stuff of legends, literally. Growing up to ten feet long, they were once believed by some medieval cultures to be the horns of mythical creatures like the unicorn — not to mention the inspiration for Jules Verne's iconic nineteenth-century science fiction novel "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas." As prominent a fixture of public fascination they may be, scientists have long struggled to understand how narwhals actually use these long, spirally protrusions. The tusks, which are actually an elongated tooth that typically belong to males of the Arctic whale species, are known to be flaunted in mating rituals, but whether they served other purposes has escaped observation. Now, as reported in a study published in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science, a team of researchers from the US and Canada have used drones to capture rare footage of the whales using their tusks in the wild, including the first video evidence of the tusks being used to toy with and inve ... Read full article.