Sep 3, 2011
Wait. Narwhals are real?!
I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I thought narwhals were imaginary till today. The name and the phenomenon both seem like things that the internet would make up for a good joke…
Please don’t make fun of me.
Photo by Paul Nicklen (via All Creatures)
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Honestly, I was surprised when I learned myself. Either way, here is a GREAT comic about them: http://www.sheldoncomics.com/archive/110902.html
You’ve got to watch the BBC human planet episode about living in freezing climates – amazing narwhal footage. The whole series is mind blowing. I read somewhere that legends of mermaids are somehow linked to sailors seeing narwhals and being mystified, but not quite sure how they would mistake them for fishy beauties!
‘I read somewhere that legends of mermaids are somehow linked to sailors seeing narwhals and being mystified…’
I think that’s manatees. Those critters sometimes nurse their young on the surface, in a position similar to that of a woman cradling a baby. I suppose, if a guy hasn’t seen women for a *long* time, his imagination might fill in the blanks.
Wow, I didn’t know there was such a thing! That’s crazy. How could we be alive so long and not know that something like this existed?
“We”, white man?
I was reading about these recently and like the person above – it really blew my mind. I can’t imagine swimming with that attached to your head. THey’re like a made up animal of a child’s imagination, aren’t they?
wow! I was in the dark about these too. But isn’t God amazing? blows my mind!
I think finding a picture of god on the internet after 10000 years of human imagination running rampant would be more amazing.
No, God is imaginary… evolution is amazing.
Yep, whenever I think about evolution I am totally amazed at how much BALONEY sells for these days.
Something does not come from nothing. The Law of Conservation of Mass explains that. If something cannot become nothing, nothing cannot become something. That something does not then become something else. Cows + Ocean ≠ Whales. Horses + stretching of the neck ≠ Giraffes.
Evolution defies common sense, and creationism makes us admit something no one wants to admit- that we are responsible to a higher authority.
Ultimately, no one was there when everything was created/evolved, so either belief takes faith.
Just thinking the same thing. Oh, wait. I wasn’t. The theory of evolution has nothing to do with the Law of Conservation of Mass; that would be physics, not biology. Either way that law says nothing about “something coming from nothing”. Evolution only applies to organisms that already exist and does not apply to the origin of life. Your cow + ocean equation is wrong too. You need to add in (at the very least) time, random mutation and natural selection.
Ciaran- I don’t know if you’ve ever SEEN a cow, but they do not breed, eat, swim, or exist in water. Of course the equation is wrong! If a male and female went into a large freezer and made their lives there, their great-great-great-grandchildren would not be polar bears. The very idea is propesterous!
Think about it- cows cannot survive in the ocean for more than a day, let alone the hundreds of thousands of years for enough “random mutation” to occur to turn them into something that can actually survive aquatically.
This is when I found out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJGgJmnKS_k
I am guessing that Sword Fish and Marlins might come as a surprise to some folks as well.
And to think that people laugh when they notice that the KJV mentions unicorns (not that Narwhals are what is in mind, probably a single tusk Rhino).
Unicorns in the KJV?!??!! WHAAAAAAAAT?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BNsjsbJLaM
I think that it’s widely accepted to be a translation for a wild ox. Doesn’t make a lot of sense, but that’s what I’ve found.
Actually, nobody has any clue what the word means, since it doesn’t occur anywhere else except that passage. Ye Olde translators rendered it unicorn, modern translators choose a more likely animal that also fit the description… it could be anything with horns, probably.
That’s OK….I used to think that alligators could only be found in zoos in the U.S. until I stopped to eat at a restaurant in Florida and parked in front of a sign that read, “Please stay on this side of the fence. Live alligators reside in this creek”. What!?!??!?!
Unicorns of the Sea
Not *that* embarrassing. I knew a guy who thought that Armadillo’s were imaginary creatures, like a jackalope.
“Bye Buddy, hope you find your dad.”
I couldn’t resist- no one made the reference yet.
I’m so glad you did!
I’ve been thinking about it this whole time! “Thanks Mr. Narwhal!”
The real question is, when does it bacon.
THIS is when I found out.
http://youtu.be/OQ1a9LhkIoQ
And THIS (post) is when I (apparently) found out they were real.
Mind. Blown.
I love Narwhales. They have always fascinated me since I was a kid. I guess I can understand people not knowing about certain creatures. I had never seen a Dingo until recently. I seriously had no idea what it looked like.
There has been some interesting research done on the function of their horn (actually a tooth). Apparently it has all kinds of unique functions, “the narwhal’s tooth has hydrodynamic sensor capabilities. Ten million tiny nerve connections tunnel their way from the central nerve of the narwhal tusk to its outer surface. Though seemingly rigid and hard, the tusk is like a membrane with an extremely sensitive surface, capable of detecting changes in water temperature, pressure, and particle gradients. Because these whales can detect particle gradients in water, they are capable of discerning the salinity of the water, which could help them survive in their Arctic ice environment. It also allows the whales to detect water particles characteristic of the fish that constitute their diet. There is no comparison in nature in tooth form, expression, and functional adaptation.” Pretty remarkable stuff: http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2005/12.15/01-narwhal.html
Seriously cool. I knew Narwhals were real, but did not know all of that about their tusk. Thanks for sharing! :D
Didn’t you ever see Elf?
Let’s try that link again: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQ1a9LhkIoQ
I learned about Narwhals in school, I studied them right after readin 20,000 leagues under the sea… I, however, was homeschooled and studied much of what I wanted
This is what comes of not watching all those PBS Nature shows as a kid.
I love and agree with all the comments, had only ever seen artists’ renderings until now. :-) What I really want to know is, how they don’t accidentally poke one another up the jacksie when they swim??
Don’t feel bad, I didn’t know they were real either! Maybe because of Elf! Haha.
When I was writing Unthinkable (follow the link), there was a news item about narwhals, so there’s a bit of dialog about it. You can prolly get that far in the Amazon preview if you care. Or even if you don’t …
I like the part where he plugs his book!
take it nobody’s seen Bender’s Big Score
yea, like nothing else is made up on Futurama.
BBC’s Planet Earth series(including Blue Earth).
You gotta watch them all; you could not imagine the wild and crazy stuff out there…narwals are the tip of the iceberg :) Absolutely riveting videography and great narration.
Don’t feel bad. They were thought to be mythical until around 1900.
Not to make fun, but I find it a sad statement that so many people are uneducated as to the living creatures around us. Relying on Youtube, commercials and social networking for their knowledge base. Let’s take some more money from our education system. I bet that many people still believe that lemmings (look it up) regularly round themselves up and jump into the ocean en masse. Not realizing that Walt Disney fabricated that one.
“Believe none of what you hear and precious little of what you see”. I agree. Watch PBS, BBC and all the documentary channels and after that, research everything you have watched to challenge it. I have in my house 3 killer whale teeth, a meteorite, a piece of a 30 million year old eucalyptus tree that was preserved in an oil deposit. I buy science toys (look up levitron) and powerful magnets to demonstrate lenz law to my kids. I have a mendocino motor. All to let my kids immerse themselves in the world of nature and science. We have a world map with coloured stars representing the distribution of wolf species. Colour coded to represent current population levels. My daughter did that in grade 1. Our next generations wear earbuds so they don’t have to interact in person, yet will text someone in the same room. They are forgetting to listen to the world and are rapidly forgetting how to deal with conflict in a face to face situation. They are forgetting how to play outside together where they learn how to deal with other people in conflict. Important things like mediation and diplomacy and consensus are learned at the street hockey games. In short the world is forgetting how to learn together.
Wheew. Sorry for the rant. I love to see people learning. Excellent picture. (I have actually seen and touched a narwhal tusk.) I am still blown away by the experience.
Really? This many people have never heard of a Narwhal? This many people thought they were mythical? And it seems you all think God glued horns to a whales head in a drunken fit of creationism. I don’t want to be on this planet with you anymore.
“wow! I was in the dark about these too. But isn’t God amazing? blows my mind!”
…seriously? You still think God planted dinosaur bones for us to find as well?
How about the platypus…I bet that’s just mad up too.
I suppose you think unicorns are imaginary too! LOL!
Oh I’m embarrassed now…. I thought the picture was a spoof referencing a Harry potter creature…..
,
Narwhals do indeed rock! I’m glad you’ve been introduced to this unique animal of the Arctic.
What’s up with the tusk? It’s actually… a “left tooth”!
The smooth, white tusk is normally found only on males and is the result of extreme growth of the left elongated maxillary tooth that protrudes through the upper lip in a spiral form. It is believed by the majority of the scientific community that the tusk is a secondary sexual characteristic.
Narwhals are called ‘cetaceans’ (whales, dolphins, and porpoises). For all-things cetacean, visit the American Cetacean Society on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/AmericanCetaceanSociety or our website: http://www.acsonline.org
There’s also a really cool blog called, what else? “The Narwhal’s Left Tooth. Check it out: http://narwhalslefttooth.blogspot.com/
Glad you’ve been introduced to one of nature’s most intriguing and awe-inspiring creatures.
Best,
Cheryl
Cheryl M. McCormick, Ph.D.
Executive Director
American Cetacean Society
P.O. Box 1391
San Pedro, CA 90733-1391
You people need to learn more. I’ve known about Narwhals for ages. They are some kind of whale or dolphin, they have the same characteristics. They are mammals and have a blow hole on the top of their head. And I think that horn might actually be a tooth, not sure on that.
I’ve known about narwhals for a while, but I still think it’s cool they don’t accidentally fatally stab each other with those things.
Really? My 2 yr old knows they exist… But he can only count to 30 so I guess it all balances out.