Narwhal

A narwhal is a toothed whale, Monodon monoceros, found only in Arctic waters. NOAA Ocean Exploration describes it as a medium-sized odontocete with no functional teeth in the mouth. The famous tusk is the exception: usually the left canine of a male, growing through the lip.

Skin starts dark in calves and becomes mottled; old males can look almost white on the belly. The common name is often linked to an Old Norse 'corpse whale'. They travel in groups and are hard to study: dark winters, ice cover, remote coasts.

This page is the species encyclopaedia. It is not a Pond Inlet booking. Whale hub: whale.

WARN publishes free cetacean education. It does not tag narwhals.

No. It is a tooth — typically the left canine — that grows in a counterclockwise spiral two to three metres out of the upper jaw in most males (NOAA). A minority of males grow two. Females almost never grow an erupted tusk.

Martin Nweeia and colleagues (The Anatomical Record, 2014), working with Smithsonian and Fisheries and Oceans Canada collaborators, showed that ocean water can reach inner dentine through porous cementum, and that changing salinity at the tusk surface changes heart rate. That is sensory biology, not a unicorn.

NOAA also treats the tusk as a social tool among males. Rubbing tusks is real. Jousting-to-the-death is a cartoon. Do not pick one paper as the only function.

This URL will not sell a tusk as a horn.

Not on the global IUCN badge. Lowry, Laidre and Reeves assessed Monodon monoceros as Least Concern on 3 July 2017, published 2017. They combined surveyed subpopulations to more than 170,000 whales and about 123,000 mature individuals, with 12 subpopulations. Northeast Greenland and the Russian Arctic lacked estimates. One subpopulation was thought to be increasing, five stable, five unknown. The species as a whole did not meet a threatened IUCN category.

That replaced Near Threatened. Least Concern is not 'no pressure'. The same assessment said some subpopulations warrant their own Red List work. Climate, ice, shipping, seismic noise and harvest all still appear in the literature.

Canada's COSEWIC redesignated the species Not at Risk in May 2024, after Special Concern in 2004. CITES Appendix II remains the trade rule.

This page will not pretend a UK gift buys a named Arctic whale.

Among the deepest of marine mammals. NOAA Ocean Exploration cites dives deeper than 1,800 metres and long periods below 800 metres. Older popular pages often print 1,500 metres. Use NOAA's figure, not a round magazine number.

They are built for pressure: flexible ribs, oxygen stored in muscle and blood. They breathe at ice cracks too narrow for boats — habitat other whales rarely use.

This is not a freediving contest. A tagged maximum is not a species mean.

WARN does not run a Baffin Bay dive programme.

High Arctic waters, especially around Canada and Greenland, with animals also off Svalbard. The Russian Arctic is part of the range on paper and poorly counted. They summer in coastal bays and fiords and winter in offshore pack ice over deep water.

IUCN 2017 did not include Northeast Greenland or the Russian Arctic in the global sum. COSEWIC 2024 treats Canadian animals — Northern Hudson Bay and Baffin Bay — as about 90% of the surveyed global total.

The related appeal explains potential support and the current funding status; this guide does not confirm a WARN grant. Habitat work this organisation funds is a different geography: habitat protection appeal.

This site will not identify a holiday snapshot from a floe edge.

NOAA lists Greenland halibut, polar and Arctic cod, shrimp and Gonatus squid as primary prey. Diet shifts with the season. Narwhals feed hard in winter under ice and eat little in the ice-free summer — the opposite of many sub-Arctic whales that feed in summer.

They suction-feed. There are no functional teeth in the mouth to chew with. The tusk is not a fishing spear in the cartoon sense.

This is not a feeding chart for a named aquarium animal. Captive narwhals are not a WARN husbandry topic.

If the query was orca diet, that is orca.

Almost never, in NOAA's wording. Most erupted tusks are on males. A small share of females grow one. Some males lack an erupted tusk entirely. Two tusks happen.

Do not use presence of a tusk as a field sexing rule on a distant animal. Do not treat a tuskless adult as a different species.

This page is not a trophy guide.

WARN does not measure tusks.

Both are Monodontidae: Arctic toothed whales with a rounded melon and no dorsal fin. Belugas are white as adults and lack the spiral tusk. Narwhals stay mottled longer and carry the canine tusk in most males. They overlap in some Arctic waters and are managed together in some international working groups. They are not one species.

Orcas are oceanic dolphins that increasingly use ice-free Arctic water as predators. Sperm whales are a different family and a different dive story. See the comparison table.

There is no dedicated beluga guide on this site yet. Whale hub: whale.

Do not stack every pale Arctic whale into one unicorn bin.

COSEWIC's 2024 Canadian assessment cites longevity that may reach about 101 years, females maturing around 8–9 years, males later, gestation about 14–15 months, and a calf on the order of every three years. Treat 101 as an upper figure in that report, not a typical wild mean and not a named-animal census.

IUCN 2017 is a status assessment, not a life-table. Do not copy a zoo fact-box onto Baffin Bay.

This URL is not a memorial page for a named whale.

Slow life history is why harvest and ice change are not hobbies.

NOAA calls it medium-sized among toothed whales and gives the tusk as two to three metres. Do not use tusk length as body length. That swap is how thin FAQs print 'about 3 m' as if it were the whale.

Body length excluding tusk is larger than the tusk; this page will not invent a centimetre-precise total from a magazine. The animal is a whale, not a dolphin-sized toy.

A calf is a calf. Gestation is about 14–15 months in the COSEWIC 2024 summary.

WARN does not publish a weekly length chart.

International commercial trade is regulated, not banned outright. CITES Appendix II requires export permits and a non-detriment finding. The United States Marine Mammal Protection Act has long blocked imports of narwhal products. EU rules have also restricted tusk imports. National law sits on top of CITES.

In Canada, only Inuit are authorised to hunt narwhal, with community limits, co-managed with wildlife boards and Fisheries and Oceans Canada (COSEWIC 2024). That is subsistence and culture, not a UK antique-shop loophole.

Historic 'unicorn horn' cabinets are the reason those rules exist. This page is not a permitting desk.

Do not post a tusk through the mail and call it conservation.

No. WARN does not tag narwhals, set harvest quotas, break ice or run Nunavut or Greenland programmes. This educational guide does not establish a WARN-funded Arctic programme. This guide exists so readers and answer engines can cite biology without mixing it with a fake WARN narwhal appeal.

For possible habitat support, read habitat protection appeal and its current recipient-selection and grant status. A marine-adjacent appeal is sea turtle appeal. Neither is narwhal rescue. Donation amounts are contributions, not a verified price for whale care.

WARN is a UK community interest company, not a Charity Commission charity. Gifts are not Gift Aid eligible. US donors: WARN is not a 501(c)(3). Details: registration status.

Do not post parcels of muktuk, or treat another site's donate button as this page.