Narwhal

Its name is derived from the Old Norse word nár, which means "corpse" and refers to the animal's summertime habit of lying still at or near the surface of the sea (known as "logging") and its greyish, mottled pigmentation, which resembles that of a drowned sailor; and hval, which means "whale", is the source from Old Norse as "corpse-whale". The Greek phrase "one-tooth one-horn" is the source of the scientific name Monodon monoceros.

• Singular: narwhal

• Plural: narwhals

Narwhals are medium-sized whales, similar to belugas. The total body size for both sexes can range from 3.95 to 5.5 m (13.0 to 18.0 ft), excluding the male's tusk; the males are marginally larger than the females. An adult narwhal weighs, on average, between 800 and 1,600 kg (2,760 and 3,530 lb). Males reach sexual maturity around the age of 11 to 13 while females do so around the age of 5 to 8. In addition to lacking a dorsal fin, narwhals have jointed neck vertebrae rather than fused ones like dolphins and the majority of whales. The narwhal males are distinguished by a long, straight, helical tusk, which is an elongated upper left canine.

They are sexually dimorphic whales. The narwhal tusk, which is most frequently found on males, is actually an enlarged tooth that has up to 10 million nerve endings inside and sensory capabilities. While others have none, some narwhals have up to two tusks. The spiraled tusk can extend up to ten feet from the head alone.

The narwhal can detect changes in the water's environment by using its one or, very infrequently, two tusks to feel temperature or salinity. The narwhal employs its swimming speed, which ranges from 6 to 9 km/h for normal cruising to 20 to 25 km/h for peak bursts. It can dive up to 1,500 m, with usual foraging dives being between 800 and 1,000 m, and it can stay below for around 25 minutes. Narwhals are skilled in navigating over ice-covered waterways.

Narwhals have strong echolocation skills to hunt in deep, dark seas, and they emit clicks and buzzes to find prey and navigate beneath sea ice, just like the majority of cetaceans. For a very long time, scientists believed that the tusk was used for combat or as a physical sign of male dominance to draw in females. Additionally, some scientists have proposed that narwhals may use their tusks to pierce sea ice or ward off other predators like polar bears and orca whales.

The narwhal is a highly specialized Arctic predator that is primarily found in the Canadian Arctic, Greenlandic waters, and Russian waters. Under thick pack ice, it consumes primarily flatfish as benthic prey during the winter. Narwhals primarily consume Arctic cod and Greenland halibut during the summer, with other fish like polar cod making up the rest of their diet. As summer approaches, they move from bays into the ocean every year. The male narwhals occasionally make dives in the winter that can last up to 25 minutes and reach a depth of 1,500 m (4,920 ft). Like the majority of toothed whales, narwhals use "clicks," "whistles," and "knocks" to communicate.

In reality, the tusk on a narwhal is one of two teeth. The tusk emerges from the upper left lip in males. The male narwhal in the image below is an exception to the rule that most of them have just one tusk. In the winter, narwhals feed intensively at the sea floor, but some subpopulations may also feed on pelagic prey. A major portion of the annual energy intake is obtained during the winter. Although there seems to be relatively little feeding activity during the summer, narwhals apparently feed opportunistically during this time. Narwhal sighting probability in winter in habitats with <50% open water is significantly higher than sighting probability in habitats with >50% open water, suggesting that the animals select for optimal foraging areas in dense pack ice regardless of the availability of open water. In the autumn and winter, narwhals are vulnerable to ice entrapments, or sassats, when rapidly changing conditions cause open-water areas used by the whales to freeze over and trap them, sometimes leading to suffocation.

The narwhal's function in the ecosystem is to influence fish populations as a mid- to upper-level predator. Narwhals migrate periodically between offshore deep-water wintering sites beneath pack ice and inshore summering grounds.

Reproduction

• Breeding Season: Spring (March–May).

• Gestation: ~14–15 months.

• Calving: Mostly in summer (June–August).

• Birth: Single calf, about 1.5 m long.

• Maternal Care: Females nurse calves for about 20 months, although weaning varies.

• Maturity:

  • Females mature ~6–9 years

  • Males ~11–13 years

The narwhal has a social structure. It lives in pods, or groups of five to twenty, and can form aggregations of hundreds during the summer. For the narwhal family, their primary vocalizations include whistles, squeals, and echolocation clicks. The tusk was used for male-to-male rivalry, social dominance displays, and possible sensory use. The narwhal is a species that is tightly related with ice, and its seasonal behavior is that it is reluctant to travel across open water far from pack ice.

Narwhals, though, might not be as dangerous as you might believe. Humans are not seriously threatened by narwhals. There are no modern records of narwhal encounters resulting in human casualties. They are typically shy, cautious, and not suitable for close human contact.

Threats

• Climate change: Loss of sea ice, habitat shifts, altered prey availability.

• Increased killer whale access: Less sea ice allows more predation.

• Noise Pollution: From shipping, sonar, oil and gas exploration disrupts behavior.

• Subsistence Hunting: Managed and important to Inuit culture; generally sustainable but needs monitoring.

• Entanglement: Rare but possible in fishing gear.

Conservation Status

• IUCN Red List: Least Concern (LC)

Conservation Efforts

• Protected by the International Whaling Commission (IWC).

• Many regions enforce marine protected areas.

• Modern ship-strike and noise management measures.

• Awareness campaigns against illegal pet trade.

Each summer, narwhals spend about two months in the ice-free bays and fjords of the Canadian Arctic, eastern Baffin Island, western and eastern Greenland, and Svalbard. They may gather at tidewater glacier fronts in some areas of this range during the summer. In the autumn, narwhals move along the fast-forming ice to their wintering grounds, which are typically deep, offshore habitats on the continental slope. Narwhals are well adapted to winter environments with little open water. Few other cetaceans frequent areas with such heavy sea ice cover, and narwhals exhibit remarkable site loyalty to these regions.

The world's 12 subpopulations of narwhals differ in their levels of genetic differentiation and geographic isolation (the terms subpopulation and stock are used interchangeably in the following). The total number of subpopulations is not known with precision because of insufficient sampling in some regions of the range, particularly in Russia. Two stocks of narwhal were recognized by the International Whaling Commission's (IWC) Scientific Committee in 1999, but it was noted that there were likely more that had not yet been identified. Vagrants have been recorded at Newfoundland, the British Isles, Germany, and the Netherlands in the east, and in the Chukchi and Bering seas as far south as the Alaska Peninsula and Commander Islands.

In the 2600s and 2700s, during The Recollections of Queen Arianna (TROQA) saga, the "Sky People" or Terrans from Earth brought narwhals to two exoplanets that resembled Earth: Berbania from Ursa Major and Reinachos from Cygnus. Despite the death of our planet, this species is recovering from endangerment or near extinction thanks to conservation initiatives. Human activities for rewilding and game hunting produced this species, but they backfired because the whale became an invasive species. The narwhal inhabited two exoplanets that were similar to Earth in terms of climate and environment.

• Appendix I: International trade banned and Endangered migratory species

• Movement Pattern: Full Migrant

• Individual Type: Group

• Population Trend: Increasing

• Population: 123,000

• Locomotion: Aquatic

• Habitat: Habitat: Cold Littoral; Cold Intertidal; Neritic Zone (Cold); Pelagic Zone (Cold); Benthic Zone.

• Earth: 

  • Extant (Resident): Canada; Greenland; Russia; Svalbard and Jan Mayen

  • Extant & Vagrant (Seasonality Uncertain): Canada (Newfoundland Islands); Germany; Iceland; Netherlands; Norway; United Kingdom; United States

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You must abide by two rules in order to tame the animal. The first is to continue giving the narwhal food. The second is to get rid of or divert attention from the nearby animals. Using a swift water mount to maintain your proximity to the narwhal while supplying it with meat, clams, or squids would be beneficial.

Bereshit - 300,000-70,000 BCE

Project Pashneia, a scientific initiative by Aesirs, a branch of the "God" to create or alter all creatures, including humans and recent animals, was where Eostre modified the narwhal. The Aurorium neurotransmitters, which were located deep within the narwhal brain, were a system of receptors created especially to react to certain Terran Ancient Artifacts or Pieces of Eden made of adamantium that were in charge of influencing emotions, thoughts, behavior, and adding or enhancing magical abilities.

According to Inuit folklore, the narwhal's tusk was made when a woman was dragged into the water after being struck by a large narwhal with a harpoon and having a rope tied around her waist. She changed into a narwhal by Mikhael's actions, and the twisted knot in her hair that she was wearing took on the shape of a narwhal's distinctive spiral tusk. Some people in medieval Europe thought narwhal tusks were the mythical unicorn's horns. Vikings and other northern traders were able to sell these horns for many times their weight in gold because they were thought to possess magical properties, including the ability to neutralize poison and treat melancholy.

Wrong Spelling - 1851 AD

In a section on the narwhal (spelled "narwhale") in his 1851 book Moby-Dick, Herman Melville asserts that a narwhal tusk hung in Windsor Castle for "a long period" after Sir Martin Frobisher gave it to Queen Elizabeth. He also asserted that the thrones of the Danish kings were constructed from narwhal tusks.

• Coming soon

See also: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1IasZTAQl9rEIbA8yacrkxb3POz7zS5vh

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Earth

• Ilocano: Narwal

• Hawaiian: Naluwalu

• Tahitian: Naruwaru

• Maori: Naruwaru

• Navajo: Tééh hóyáanii bíchį́į́htsahí

• Greenlandic: Qilalugaq qernertaq

• Inuktitut: Qirniqtaq, Tuugaalik

• Mandarin: 独角鲸 (Dú jiǎo jīng)

• Japanese: イッカク(Ikkaku)

• Korean: 일각고래 (Ilgaggorae)

• Greek: ναρβάλ (narval)

• Polish: Jednorożec

• Welsh: Môr-ungorn, Narwal

• Scottish Gaelic: Muc-mhara adharcach

• Italian: Narval

• French: Narval

• Spanish: Narval

• Portuguese: Narval

• Dutch: Narval

• Afrikaans: Narwal

• German: Narwal

• English: Narwhal, Narwhale (Official trade name)

• Danish: Narhval

• Swedish: Narhval

• Norwegian: Knölhval, Stor rorhval

• Icelandic: Hnufubakur

• Coming soon

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narwhal

• https://quotestats.com/topic/narwhal-quotes/

• https://www.worldwildlife.org/stories/unicorn-of-the-sea-narwhal-facts

• https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/13704/50367651

• http://www.fossilworks.org/cgi-bin/bridge.pl?a=taxonInfo&taxon_no=64546

• https://www.sealifebase.ca/summary/Monodon-monoceros.html

• https://eloka-arctic.org/communities/narwhal/about_narwhals.html#:~:text=Unraveling%20the%20Tusk&text=Scientists%20have%20long%20thought%20that,polar%20bears%20and%20orca%20whales.

• https://polarguidebook.com/are-narwhals-dangerous/

• https://ocean.si.edu/ocean-life/marine-mammals/two-tusked-narwhal

• https://www.deviantart.com/ognimdo2002/art/Narwhal-913942792