A three meter long, pointy, twisted horn was in the past the proof for unicorns. Those mythical creature, white creatures in figure of a horse with a single horn on their forehead, was the quintessence of purity and virtue. The horn should heal all kinds of diseases and even defeat the death. Until now, nobody had ever seen this creature, but many people believed that they exist and from time to time a strange horn was found.
Those horns were more expensive than gold in most of the time only in the possession of kings or emperor. That those horns were tusks of narwhal was only discovered in the 17. century.
The horn made the narwhal to the strangest of all whales at least his appearance. Though his horn is sometimes half the size of his body. Also, the horn has no ‘magical forces’ something special it is certainly.
Till now scientist are not certainly sure what and how the horn is working. Is it helpful by searching for food in the mood? Or by lance fish? Is he breaking the ice with it? Or is he defeating himself against orca? Or is it just to impress females? Because normally only male narwhals have the horn.
The horn is growing out of the second teeth on the left side in the upper jaw. The American dentist Dr Martin Nweeia and his colleges have another assumption.
The researchers found under the microscope millions of small channels. They proceed from the nerve in the centre until the surface.
Those type of structures can we find in the teeth of humans. Normally they are protected by the gingival and the tooth enamel. The teeth are getting painful sensitive (Temperature-wise) if the channels are free from the gingival or the enamel. The researchers assume that the free channels in the horn of the narwhal make them super sensitive. The animals could feel the tiniest temperature change or the salt content.
Why they need that?
With that information they can determine at which point the ice next to them will freeze. That could mean death or live in some cases. The narwhale could easily swim under the ice because they don’t have any dorsal fin, but they also have to breath, so they reach the water surface from time to time.
That the narwhal uses the horn as a tool or weapon is rather unlikely. For that the horn is way to sensitive. If it is right that the animals use it as a measurement tool, it is still unknown why females don’t have a horn as well.
Like I sad in the beginning it is not clear why the narwhal have their horns. But one thing is for sure, it makes them unique and the unicorns of our oceans.
[Sources:]
Picture 1: Group of narwhals
Picture 2: Narwhal horn
Picture 3: Female and Male
Picture 4: Narwhal scull
Book I got most of the information
Knowledge is the payment our time.