What the narwhal’s tusk is really for?
Narwhal tusk main purpose is to attract females and display male status
There are a surprising number of researchers working on various tusk theories. And it may be that more than one is true, says Ms Kelley. ???I don???t want to say there is absolutely no other function that the tusk can serve because you are never really sure.??? But the consensus is growing that Darwin was right: the male narwhal grows his spectacular tusk mainly to attract members of the opposite sex.
Yet even after it was firmly established that the tusk was the left-front tooth of the narwhal, an Arctic whale unappealingly named the “corpse whale” by Scandinavians because of its mottled colouring (nar means corpse and hvalr means whale in Old Norse), conjecture continued as to why a whale would have developed such an appendage. What is Narwhal tusk main purpose?
Charles Darwin thought it had something to do with sexual selection, because with rare exceptions it is only found in males. Others have suggested that it could be used as a weapon, a tool to stir the ocean floor in search of food, a means of propping the whale???s head on an ice floe to sleep, or as a spear to catch fish???although how the narwhal would get its prey off its tusk and into its mouth remained a riddle. Research by a dentist from Harvard School of Dental Medicine published earlier this year said the massive tooth was a sensor for changes in water salinity. Most of these theories founder on the crucial point that if the tusk were necessary for the whale???s survival, females would have them too.
So the Narwhal tusk main purpose seems to be related to female attraction on many levels.
What the narwhal’s tusk is really for? Inuit say males with the biggest tusks lead whale pods and that tusking displays, when two males rub their tusks together, appear more playful than aggressive. As for those broken tips, which some researchers took as evidence of fighting, they are probably caused by narwhals hitting the bottom in panicked flight from killer whales or human hunters, according to Inuit. More… https://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2014/10/economist-explains-3#sthash.5ESCsv9W.dpuf