Even though no one has seen unicorns in person until now, many people are convinced that this species must have existed, or must have existed.
In 1577, the English explorer Martin Frobisher found the figure of a "unicorn" in the waters of northern Canada, which was "a large fish with a huge horn". This big fish was the narwhal, which was called "the unicorn of the ocean" at the time.
So far, among the animals with long horns, only the horns of this animal have been found to be so similar to the horns of the legendary unicorn: straight-growing spiral horns.
In the European Middle Ages, the price of such horns was several times that of gold, and the nobles were eager for such horns. It is believed that dipping such horns into toxic food and wine will darken the color of toxic substances and make a "popping" sound, which can also make the toxic effects lost. Queen Elizabeth once spent £10,000 on a "unicorn horn", which was equivalent to the cost of a castle at that time.
In nature, animals grow horns, either for attack and defense, or for mates, or as a symbol that can help them establish themselves in the group.
So what is the role of the horns of narwhals living in the ocean? It's been hundreds of years since the first narwhal was discovered, but in fact, scientists have speculated about the horns of narwhals, but only some fur has been studied.
In the large family of whales, narwhals are relatively small, which makes their horns even more huge.
Narwhals generally have a body length of 4-5 meters, which does not include their long horns, while their horns are 2-3 meters long. That is, the horns of narwhals are almost half the length of their bodies.
The root of the horn is about 25 cm in diameter and grows straight in a spiral shape, becoming thinner and thinner the higher it goes.
Imagine a 4-meter-long fish swimming in the ocean with a straight, slender horn? What exactly does this horn do?
The horns of a narwhal are certainly very different from the horns of any animal on land. There is a word called "water drop stone wear", even if the horns are harder than stones, but narwhals live in the ocean, soaked in the sea water that even iron can corrode, their horns are still hard, this alone is worth studying.
In addition, only the horns of unicorns in nature have a ratio of nearly 1:2 between the horns and the body length of the body. Too long horns for animals will affect survival.
The horns of the narwhal grow from the upper lip, and this long horn is actually its deformed teeth.
In the embryo, the narwhal originally had 16 teeth, but all of them gradually disappeared during development, leaving only the two canine teeth on the palate. When the narwhal reaches one year of age, the male's left canine teeth will burst out of the lip, grow upwards in a small way, and gradually grow the appearance of long horns. There are only a handful of male narwhals, and both canine teeth protrude, producing two tusks, although the right side will be slightly shorter than the left.
Most females do not grow tusks, and some female narwhals that do do not have teeth more than 1.2 meters long.
The tusks of narwhals, in the earliest speculation, some thought they were tools for their predation, some thought it would help them break through the ice, some thought they relied on exposing their teeth to the surface to breathe, and some thought they would use their tusks to drive away predators killer whales.
However, these speculations have no way of explaining, if tusks are good for their survival, why don't females have tusks?
After studying the anatomy of the tusks of narwhals, it was found that their tooth structure was also different from that of mammals.
The tusks of narwhals and the teeth of mammals have similar substances, including dentin, pulp and bone. Mammalian teeth, with a soft pulp in the innermost layer, which have dental canals and nerves, are very sensitive to cold things. The dentin wraps around the outer layer to protect the pulp, and the outermost layer is the bone, which is connected to the bone.
The narwhal's tusks, the most susceptible to cold irritation, are exposed, and the bone is immersed in seawater for many years, and a highly mineralized substance is wrapped around the pulp, like a steel bar.
In addition, the tusks of narwhals are hollow.
In general, slender, straight, hollow tusks that break easily. But American dentist Martin Envia and his colleagues used advanced technology to learn that narwhals' tusks are very hard and flexible. It may seem that they may break if they are bent, but in fact their tusks can bend in any direction.
This flexibility and elasticity may be due to the unique structure of the narwhal's teeth. If this material can be applied to dentistry, it will be a huge improvement.
The most intuitive difference between the tusks of narwhals is that males grow and females rarely grow, which makes many zoologists directly related to mating.
Scientists took samples from 1983 to 2018, and after analyzing 245 samples, they found that the attitude of females to males is indeed related to tusks. The longer the male's teeth, the more he is favored by the female. This has nothing to do with the length of the male's body or the thickness of the teeth, only the length of the teeth.
Not only that, but narwhals are social animals, and the longer the teeth of male narwhals, the higher their status in the group.
But we said earlier that the dental tubes of narwhals' tusks are directly exposed to the icy ocean, which shows that tusks do more than just show status.
The narwhal's tusks are sensory organs that contain a plasma-like solution in the dental tube, and its tusks can be used to sense the salinity of seawater. The formation of ice can affect the salinity of the sea, which can prevent narwhals from floating and breathe, which is essential for their survival.
Scientists looked at the brain activity of narwhals when their tusks came into contact with salt and found that narwhals may sense changes in the salinity of seawater from miles away.
In addition, male narwhals rub their tusks against each other, and scientists believe they are exchanging physical and chemical information collected from the water.
Because of the mystery of narwhals, not much is known about their tusks. Although their current numbers are not dangerous, many people still want to get their tusks. They are mysterious "unicorns in the sea", and if narwhals eventually become extinct, then one day in the future, people at that time may also sigh that there will be such creatures.