What are the narwhals up to? Generally, we don't really know! They are mysterious creatures. NPR science correspondent Nell Greenfieldboyce talks about new, rare drone footage scientists captured of arctic narwhals. The video sparked new ideas for how they use their tusks.Read Nell's full piece.Love mysterious critters and want to hear more? Email us at [email protected] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Chapter 1: What are narwhals and why are they mysterious?
You're listening to Shortwave from NPR. Hey, Shortwavers, Regina Barber here. So if I say unicorns, what comes to mind? For me, I think about the way this legendary creature has been talked about for hundreds and hundreds of years. It's linked to magic and fantasy. And of course, I also think of that key feature of unicorns. You know what I'm talking about. The famous unicorn horn.
You see, in medieval Europe, wealthy people could buy unicorn horns. They looked like these long spiral horns that tapered to a point.
It almost seems like it was the strongest proof that unicorns really did exist.
That's zoologist Greg Okori-Crow. He's with Florida Atlantic University. And he doesn't study unicorns. He studies narwhals, the Arctic whale that has a long tusk jutting out of its head. And it's sometimes called the unicorn of the sea. Greg says way back when, seafarers brought narwhal tusks back to Europe and passed them off as unicorn horns.
And even though they're not really unicorn horns, they're kind of magical.
I've been involved in some satellite tagging of live narwhals, obviously. And it is quite an overwhelming experience to stand there in the water and help hold a live narwhal and sort of feel the tusk.
A tusk can be 10 feet long, and he says it's beautiful.
It almost looks like it has been fashioned and carved. It has a lovely spiral, scrolled pattern to it. So it's mesmerizing, really, in some ways.
So he was actually talking about this with my colleague, science correspondent Nell Greenfield-Boyce. And Nell, I hear you're no stranger to narwhal tusks yourself, right?
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Chapter 2: What is the significance of the narwhal tusk?
Okay, so this is where we get into the drone footage.
Yeah, so okay, he's part of this research team that sent small drones up in the air over narwhals that were hanging out in this bay, like in the Canadian high Arctic. And the drones would kind of hover there, you know, high enough so that they didn't disturb the narwhals. But they could look down through the water, like, you know, down 15 feet or so. And he says...
You know, overall, the narwhals were pretty chill. This wasn't their main mating season or foraging season. So they were kind of passing the time, just hanging out together in groups.
Females were nursing calves. Males were hanging out in these sort of bachelor herds.
He says it was really notable how little aggression there was.
They don't seem to be pushing and shoving each other with their tusks. It's almost like, you know, don't touch, don't touch the tusk.
But the drones did see that occasionally some of the narwhals were using their tusks to go after fish. Ooh, so like, what do you mean going after? Like, were they spearing them? Not spearing them, but like in the videos, you'll see a fish swimming and right behind it, you'll see the narwhal kind of tracking the fish with...
The point of the tusk always staying close to it as the fish kind of changes directions. And sometimes the narwhal would hit the fish, like maybe hit it more than once, maybe flip it over. In the video, you see this kind of silver flash of fish and then the splash, you know, the narwhal is kind of messing with it.
They seem to be able to use their tusks to interrogate, manipulate incredible precision, small objects. So the dexterity and use of the tusk was really striking.
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Chapter 3: How do narwhals use their tusks?
Right. So it's not necessary like for foraging.
Right. But she says maybe as long as the males have a tusk, they've figured out how to use it.
I think it's a sort of secondary use for their tusks that maybe some whales have learned and are utilizing to their advantage.
She pointed out there's some other video, critter cam video taken by cameras put on narwhals, and it found that they roll their bodies when they get to the bottom of the water, sort of prompting speculation that narwhals might use their tusk as like a shovel to shovel up stuff from the bottom.
There's also some other drone video that another group captured back in 2017 that shows narwhals near the surface also going after fish with their tusks. So similar to this new footage. Exactly. Yeah. And so that previous study prompted headlines like video solves mystery of how narwhals use their tusks.
But I thought, like, everyone had agreed that the main use of their tusks was to, like, amaze the females. Like, that was not a mystery, right? Exactly.
Exactly. And so while this drone footage is fascinating to watch, I mean, what to make of it? It offers just these little glimpses into the world of narwhals when most of the time the narwhals and their behavior is just not observable. I called up Kristen Lydra. She's a polar biologist with the University of Washington. She's the researcher I went to Greenland with.
She was trying to catch and tag narwhals at the time. And I asked her what she made of this new drone footage.
I think these are short-term videos that show a few narwhals at the surface, you know, moving their heads around in the vicinity of a fish. And whether it's play behavior or pursuit of that fish to consume it, nobody knows.
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Chapter 4: What new insights do drones provide on narwhal behavior?
But she says we have like almost no underwater images of these whales. I mean, it was hard enough for researchers to get fleeting looks at the whales using those aerial drones. And even if it was possible to build some kind of underwater drone that could like follow after them, the whales would probably flee. Yeah.
Well, based on these videos, maybe they would just poke it with their tusks or like play with it.
I don't know. I don't think so. They're skittish. But if researchers build a robo-narwhal and send it down there to learn their secrets, I will definitely come back and tell you all about it for sure.
And also, those who listen.