Narwhal

The narwhal has inspired many a seafaring legend and their enormous, spiralled tusks were once sold as unicorn horns. With temperatures in the Arctic rising faster than anywhere else, the climate crisis may a major threat to the narwhal's future. The most obvious thing to say is that males have a massive tusk which can grow up to 10 feet long. Most females don’t have a tusk and they look a bit like mottled grey beluga whales. Narwhals have a blotchy sausage-shaped body, a rounded head with no beak, a ridge on their backs rather than a fin and short blunt flippers with upcurled edges. They have odd-shaped tail flukes that look as though they have been put on backwards. Narwhals live in groups of 10 to 20 individuals but in the summer they come together in groups of hundreds or even thousands of whales to migrate. They travel together, swimming fast and close to the surface. Sometimes they float, motionless at the surface and occasionally they will all leap out of the water or dive at the same time. We don’t know why they behave in this way but it’s sure to make perfect sense to them. Narwhals are one of the deepest diving whales and can hold their breaths for an amazing 25 minutes. The longest recorded narwhal dive is 1,500 metres. Narwhals are fond of flatfish, cod, shrimp and squid and species like crab that they find on the seabed during their long dives. They use echolocation to help them find food and have an interesting way of eating –creating a sort of vacuum and sucking up their food. No one really knows if their tusk plays a role in hunting or feeding. If you are a narwhal, home is the freezing pack ice of the Arctic. Narwhals live above the Arctic Circle right up to the polar ice cap. In the summer they migrate to coastal waters and fjords of Greenland and Canada moving offshore again in winter to avoid being trapped by ice. Their natural predators are polar bears, orcas and sharks and they have been hunted by Inuit for their skin, blubber and tusks for centuries. Because they are so adapted to life in the polar ice, they are probably the whale species most affected by climate change.