@oceanlife365

#oceanschool is open seven days a week. The first time I looked inside the mouth of a narwhal, I was surprised to see that it never had any teeth at all. Instead, when they are born, they have two elongated canine teeth embedded in their upper jaw. Then, typically the left tooth starts to protrude out of the skin and grows in a left handed helix spiral. The tusk continues to grow throughout the life of the whale and can reach 10 feet in length and weigh up to 20 pounds. Narwhals can live up to a hundreds old so that is a lot of growing. I have quite a few pictures of narwhals showing a broken tip as seen here. A tiny fraction of females grow a tusk also and less than half a percent of male narwhals have two tusks. There has been much scientific debate on the proposed function of the tusk which has millions of nerve endings which makes it a sensory organ. Can you feel a cold or hot drink on your teeth? Some say it can measure salinity, water temperature and even depth. If the tusk provided such life sustaining information, don’t you think females would have evolved to have them as well? Female narwhals live longer than males and occur in the same areas. Therefore, the general scientific consensus is that the narwhal tusk is a sexual trait like the antlers on a moose. However, in 2010, after shooting a story for @natgeo on sailfish where we saw them hitting and stunning sardines with their bills, I asked if the male narwhal tusk could serve the same purpose. I based this on the photographs that I captured (scroll) of polar cod being stuck to the narwhal tusk during a feeding frenzy. Then, years later drone footage captured by Adam Ravetch was released of narwhals doing exactly that. I love how photographers and scientists collaborate on the sharing of knowledge, data and information. Photo & Caption : @paulnicklen . . . . . . . . . . #cetaceans #marinemammals #seaanimals #oceananimals #narwhals #oceanworld #oneocean #oceanography #oceanografic #madeofocean #narwhal #theocean #ocean🌊 #oceanconservation #seacreatures #ourplanet #natgeowildlife #endangeredspecies #wildlifephoto #natgeowild #oceans #whales #marinelife #wildlife