Title: What is a narwhal? : Ocean Exploration Facts: NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research
Headings: What is a narwhal?
What is a narwhal?
A narwhal is a medium-sized, toothed whale that is only found in Arctic waters.

Content: Image courtesy of Kristin Laidre. Download image (jpg, 80 KB). The narwhal is an odontocete or toothed whale, but is different from all other toothed whales in that it has no teeth in its mouth. Instead, male narwhals have a single long, straight tooth (or tusk) that protrudes two to three meters out of the upper left jaw. Females almost never have a tusk. The tooth grows in a counterclockwise spiral. It is this tusk for which narwhals are best known. There are many legends about the tusk of the narwhal – it is essentially the origin of the myth of the unicorn as European whalers that were in the Arctic would catch narwhals and bring tusks back to Europe with great stories about what kind of animals the tusks were attached to. But in terms of the biology of the animal, the tusk is actually used for social structure, to establish dominance hierarchies and ranks of males within narwhal pods. Narwhals have a black and white mottled skin pattern and are white underneath.