- Náhvalur
- Qilalugaq qernertaq
- Náhvalur
- Narhval
- Narwhal
Narhvaler er lette at kende på deres stødtand, som er en hul hjørnetand i overkæben. De fleste har én stødtand (i venstre side), men 1 ud af 500 hanner har to. Hunnerne får kun sjældent en stødtand, og der har kun været ét kendt tilfælde af en hun med to stødtænder. Tanden begynder at bryde frem, når narhvalen er omkring to til tre år gammel. Når tanden vokser, snor den sig i retning mod uret. Den kan blive op til 3 meter lang. Stødtænderne er overraskende fleksible: De kan bøjes op til 30 centimeter uden at knække. Der er mange teorier om stødtandens funktion – at hvalen kan bruge den til at bore gennem isen, til at mærke ændringer i havvand eller til at spidde fisk med. Det mest sandsynlige er, at stødtanden er et sekundært kønskaraktertræk, som hanner kan bruge i kampen om social rang eller til at tiltrække hunner med, som ofte vælger hanner med længere stødtænder.
Narlugaen er en hybrid mellem en narhval og en hvidhval, hvor andetleddet, -luga, kommer af en del af det oprindelig russiske navn for hvidhval, belukha, der betyder “hvid”. I slutningen af 1980’erne fangede en inuitjæger et unikt dyr med grå hud, hvidhvallignende luffer og en hale, der lignede en narhvals. Dets kranium viste træk fra begge arter, men det mest markante var dyrets tænder: Den havde 18 tænder, der stak udad og tydede på, at dyret var bundæder, der brugte tænderne som skovle til at rode gennem sand med. En DNA-analyse afslørede, at dyret var en han og var afkom af en narhvalmor og en hvidhvalfar.
Lydkreditering: Outi Tervo, Grønlands Naturinstitut
Forskning
Narwhals are shy animals and live in hard-to-reach places, but Susanna B. Blackwell and her team recorded for the first time three types of sounds East Greenland narwhals make: clicks, buzzes, and calls. Clicks and buzzes are mainly used to find food via echolocation, but they also help with general navigation. Calls, on the other hand, are thought to be used for communication within a group. Studying acoustic recordings and diving patterns revealed that narwhals socialise close to the surface, while they feed at greater depths.
Why is this study important for narwhal management? As ice conditions change, the increase in shipping and exploration activities in the Arctic exposes narwhals to more noise. Studying narwhal communication is important to understand how their behaviour will be affected by noise pollution in a changing Arctic.
If you would like to read this fascinating study on narwhal vocalisation, check out this link:
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0198295.
According to old Inuit myth, narwhals come from a woman with long hair that was twisted and plaided to resemble a tusk! Like many other myths, this one also has many versions, but they have somethings in common
The story goes:
Mother had a daughter and a blind son. She didn't treat them equally, but rather preferring daughter over her son. When he got older, son regained his sight and realised just how bad his mother treated him.
One day he was pretending to help his mother to catch a beluga whale. He gave her a line of harpoon to hold, and he hit the biggest beluga of the pod. The beluga pulled his mother under the sea and as she was struggling to free herself, her hair twisted into a horn. She was transformed into a narwhal and swam away with the beluga pod.












































































