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We finally know why Narwhals have tusks

Narwhals are one of the more dorky looking animals that roam the ocean. That’s including the sunfish and the angler fish. Why are narwhals so odd looking, you ask? That’s mainly due to the HUGE tusk on their head. For […]

Narwhals are one of the more dorky looking animals that roam the ocean. That’s including the sunfish and the angler fish. Why are narwhals so odd looking, you ask?

That’s mainly due to the HUGE tusk on their head. For as long as we’ve known about their existence, we’ve had little to no idea why it’s there. Naturally, as humans see themselves as the superior species, we’ve found this particularly troubling. Especially when we like to know everything about every living thing that is on the Earth.

narwhals
Look how sweet they are! Source.

However, thanks to the beautiful technology that is drones (although they’ve been notorious in the past), we finally have footage of what narwhals use it for. It’s for food. They use it because they’re hungry and to knock their prey senseless before eating them.

The scientific community is absolutely buzzing with this new information. An assistant biology professor from the University of Windsor is essentially losing his mind over this information because he was a part of the research team who shot the footage. Nigel Hussey, who is the fanboy of narwhals, tells the National Post:

“It’s an iconic animal because of what is essentially an erupted tooth. There’s been many hypothesis, but no one has observed or proven anything specifically.

“This footage is the first time we have a direct observation of the tusk being used for a specific behaviour.”

Although the footage for this clip was shot back in August last year, it’s only come to light recently due to being published in a scientific journal this month to get people excited about the discovery. It’s definitely working.

Come check out the amazing footage below. The World Wildlife Fund posted it to their website, so obviously they’re very excited as well. It’s been a debate 400 years in the making, but it looks like we finally might have an answer.