The Unicorn of the sea :)

Image by Getty / Futurism

Narwhals, the near mythic creature of the sea, possessing a spiraled tusk whose purpose has remained a mystery for centuries, has finally been uncloaked, showing how the males use their tusks in ways bordering on the magical.

To whit.

Narwhal tusks are the stuff of legends, literally. Growing up to ten feet long, they were once believed by some medieval cultures to be the horns of mythical creatures like the unicorn — not to mention the inspiration for Jules Verne's iconic nineteenth-century science fiction novel "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas."

In total, the researchers documented seventeen distinct behaviors, many of which included interacting with nearby fish. In some cases, the narwhals used their tusks, non-forcefully, to influence the fish's behavior. They would tap the fish, slowly push them downwards, flip them, or knock them off-course — but not with the intent of eating them, curiously. The researchers suggest that this is a sign of "exploratory-object-play," in which the whales are simply trying to understand their surroundings, like a never-before-encountered fish, by playing with them.

But when it was time to forage, the researchers observed the whales using their tusks to violently strike the fish, often in rapid succession in side-to-side slashes. This incapacitated, stunned, and possibly even killed the creatures. Sometimes, the narwhals also used their tusks to ward off food thieves like seagulls.

The tusks may be lengthy but are by no means unwieldy. According to the researchers, the whales showed remarkable dexterity and speed when tracking fish with the tip of their tusks. And they'd have to be, to pull off maneuvers like "near instantaneous turns up to 360 degrees, completed in under three seconds which were achieved by rotating the body on its side and moving the head downwards towards its tail," as the researchers wrote in the study.

In some ways, the Narwal remaining forever mysterious sounds more romantic

in an age driven by science & tech.

Size compared to an average human