Meet the narwhal: "The unicorn of the sea"

By Maddie Kotch, Contributor

If you were wondering what Buddy the Elf’s favorite marine animal is – which, I know you were – it’s the narwhal! Apparently, only ABEC majors like myself know what narwhals are, as Features Editor Maddy Lockwood did not know that they were an actual animal that existed outside of the world of “Elf” until about two weeks ago. 

Narwhals are often referred to as the “unicorns of the sea” because their tusk was thought to be unicorn horns by those who lived in the Middle Ages. Spoiler alert: this is not the case, as the tusks of narwhals are actually just a big tooth. 

The tusk of a narwhal is mostly found on males as they are used to attract females; and the myth is true when it comes to narwhals, the larger the tusk… Besides the size of their tusks and testes, the overall size of a narwhal can span from 4.9 meters to 5.4 meters depending on if the narwhal is a male or a female. 

Compared to the size of the average adult human, a narwhal is about two humans in length. Although these creatures are large, there have been no reports of them harming or acting maliciously towards humans. I would personally love to befriend a narwhal. The tusk of narwhals is also used for males to fight one another to obtain a female to mate with. And who wouldn’t want to be fought over by a man? Narwhals also don’t have to check the weather frequently as their tusks can tell changes in temperature. If you want to visit a narwhal, the closest place to visit is Hudson Bay in Saskatchewan (don’t ask me how to pronounce this), Canada, which is a good 29 hours away from Buffalo, NY. Did someone say winter break trip?

If you want to know any other information, I would suggest going to Hudson Bay yourself, as it is hard to research narwhals since they live away from the human population and deep within oceans.