Title: Arctic Whales | Ice Stories: Dispatches From Polar Scientists
Headings: Arctic Whales
Arctic Whales
Bowhead
Beluga
Narwhal

Content: The tusk of a full-grown male narwhal can extend up to half of the whale’s body length. Unlike the tusks of elephants and other animals, the narwhal tusk is a tooth. This whale has two teeth. In the male, the left tooth grows out through its lip, reaching a length of about 9 feet (3 m). A small percentage of females grow a shorter tusk, and males occasionally grow double tusks. During medieval times, narwhal tusks were sold for vast sums in Europe as unicorn horns, which were thought to cure a variety of diseases and even to neutralize poisons. It wasn’t until the late seventeenth century that the origin of the tusks started to become known. A drawing from 1820 of a narwhal– or, as labeled here by the illustrator, a “unicorn.” But the discovery of the “unicorn of the sea” created a scientific puzzle—what was the purpose of the tusk? Many theories were proposed;