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Science News

Narwhal Tusks are Sensory Organs 194

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the not-always-about-knocking-things-over dept.
PR0UD_INFIDEL writes "The New York Times is reporting that a recent study has determined that Narwhal tusks are not for fighting or breaking through ice, but are highly sensitive sensory organs. From the article: 'The close-ups showed that 10 million nerve endings tunnel from the tusk's core toward its outer surface, [and can] detect subtle changes of temperature, pressure, particle gradients and probably much else.'"
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Narwhal Tusks are Sensory Organs More

Narwhal Tusks are Sensory Organs

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  • Save the whales... (Score:5, Funny)

    by iced_tea ( 588173 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2005 @05:37AM (#14254821) Journal
    Redeem them for valuable prizes.

  • senstive (Score:2, Funny)

    by garvald ( 547907 )
    in another related report today, unicorns and swordfish claim their sword's have the same sensitive attributes and should not be underrated.

  • I knew it. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Atario ( 673917 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2005 @05:41AM (#14254832) Homepage
    They're antennae! Narwhals are the contacts for the aliens! Where's my tinfoil...
    • Tinfoil is not a good idea. Recent studies showed that tinfoil actually _amplifies_ certain electromagnetic waves, like certain frequencies exclusively reserved for the US government...
      • That's just what they want you to think...
      • see, they want you to think that so that you take off your hat. but then you are so paranoid that they are trying to get yout hat off, you leave it on. by telling you that the waves are amplified (and in fact they are) they have successfully played off of your paranioa and thus have greater access to your thoughts. and if you do take off the hat they still have decent recpetion anyway... bit of a catch-22...
      • I think a copper mesh hat is the way to go, with a wire leading down your back to ground plates on your shoes, ie a partial faraday cage of sorts. Of course in the case of lightning, you might become a premium discharge point.
    • and thanks for all the fish.

    • Yes they are (Score:5, Interesting)

      by nietsch ( 112711 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2005 @06:51AM (#14255006) Homepage Journal
      But not as you know it. Narwal are not the only species that have protrusions laced with sensors. Most insects have extremities that are used for sensing too, only in their case they are derived from legs (switch of the antennapedia gene and you get induviduals with legs on their heads)
      But being a creature that has lost it's legs long ago, it uses a tooth instead of a leg. They must earn fortunes from the tooth fairy though ;-)
         

    • Wifi Tusks (Score:2, Funny)

      by AndroidCat ( 229562 )
      Aliens? Nah. The tusks are antenne for wireless communications for sharing whale songs among the Narwhal pods. The protocol? Why naturally their Pods use Bluetooth...
    • Of course they are. That's why Admiral Kirk and Captain Spock came around looking for a pair.

  • toothache (Score:5, Funny)

    by nut ( 19435 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2005 @05:43AM (#14254836)
    Who new that sensitive teeth could be an evolutionary advantage...

  • Particle Gradient FYI (Score:5, Informative)

    by joey_knisch ( 804995 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2005 @05:44AM (#14254839)
    I had to search a bit but apparently this is when the amount of particles contained in a substrate changes with respect to distance and the distribution follows a pattern.

    Source: here [bnl.gov] is the sight that made me understand.

    This is all my speculation but I imagine this would be quite useful for narwhales since they live in a food deprived environment and could sense if they were getting closer to nutrient rich waters.
    • The title of your link is: Scientists Create New Material With Varying Densities of Gold Nanoparticles

      What on earth does that have to do with narwal tusks? A clear case of karma fooling if you ask me...

  • Me too (Score:5, Funny)

    by SpaceAdmiral ( 869318 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2005 @05:47AM (#14254845) Homepage
    My "highly sensitive sensory organ" is about the same size.

  • NYTimes Registration Sucks (Score:3, Informative)

    by boingyzain ( 739759 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2005 @05:52AM (#14254853)
    No registration required at this link: http://mirrordot.org/stories/a75c44e236dd22a96d6f1 6244d4613ad/index.html [mirrordot.org]

  • This explains... (Score:4, Funny)

    by kerrbear ( 163235 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2005 @05:55AM (#14254860)

    ...why Mr. Narwhale knew that Buddy was leaving.

  • If there's evolutionary benefit to be gained from 'extra sensory powers' it makes sense that a tooth/tusk should evolve in this way.
    What surprises me is that something that can be so easily broken should have evolved to be so sensitive. Horns and claws contain no nerves because they're so easily lost in combat.
    • The article seems to imply that they aren't used for fighting. In water you'd only get one chance to spear something so they'd have to be pretty nimble to be able to do that - something narwhals aren't. Though ice breaking would be a good and evolutionary important use of it - the nerves themselves don't come out on the surfce, but in grooves.

    • not for fighting (Score:5, Informative)

      by nietsch ( 112711 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2005 @07:24AM (#14255077) Homepage Journal
      The Tusks are not used for fighting. I am a biologist, and I do not know of any marine creature with horns used for fighting. Walrusses use their tusks for fighting, but that is on land. I doubt if they would be effective in the water.

      Also, teeth are not easily broken, it is one of the most resilient parts of the whole body. One of the most commonly found fossils are teeth. And if you ever have had a big toothache, you'd know that there are plenty of nerves inside them.

      But the reason narwals evolved a tooth for the job is probably because it was the easiest organ at hand: it already is laced with nerve endings, the only adapations it needed was for it to grow much bigger/longer and be pointed forward.

      It's funny though, some people can sense weather changes through ulcers or athritis, but these guys sense them though their teeth, and they are not even rotten. (TFA speculates that the pointing of tusks into the air while surfacing for breathing would be to check the weather).
    • What doesn't make sense to me is why only males have these structures. If they are purely sensory- used to navigate, locate prey, etc.- then you might expect the females to have them as well- wouldn't it be advantageous for females to be able to navigate/sense prey etc.?

      That implies to me that these are display structures along the lines of a peacock's tail, designed to advertise the male's fitness rather than serve any particular function. Of course, that doesn't really explain why you would have all thos

      • As narwhals are social creatures, it is feasible that having every member of the pod having the sensory apparatus is no more advantageous than having only a portion of the population having the tusk. Since the structure probably would carry some disadvantages (reduced mobility, energy required to grow and maintain, etc) that could tend to support only one sex having the tusk. This could be combined with simple sexual selection as you mentioned to put more evolutionary pressure towards males with large tus
      • A possible explanation is that narwhal live and hunt in pods. Really, only one member of the pod needs to have such a sensory organ. Perhaps the males take the energy hit of producing and living with the tusks, leaving the females their normal burden of bearing young. Kind of like how male humans tend to be bigger and stronger (which means they need more calories but are better at fighting and hunting) while females are smaller.
  • It's interesting how our highly developed sense of cognition limits us to thinking sharp+pointed=weapon, however I've also seen John Holmes flogging a few porn stars senseless with his large sensory organ, so eh..
  • What they used to say is true. Never go anywhere without a narwhal.

    Hang on...
  • It is nice to know that these animals don't have to go around life with a long thing sticking out of they're face for nothing.

  • NPR audio link (Score:5, Informative)

    by Guano_Jim ( 157555 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2005 @06:25AM (#14254935)
    NPR did a story [npr.org] on this yesterday morning.

    Summary:

    A Harvard dental researcher says he's figured out the purpose of the giant, unicorn-like tusk seen on narwhal whales: It acts like an antenna that allows the narwhal to sense food and sea conditions. The dentist says the tusks are a giant tooth that grows inside out, with hard tissue inside and sensitive nerves on the outside.

    • Re:NPR audio link (Score:3, Interesting)

      by 0-9a-f ( 445046 )

      ...the tusks are a giant tooth that grows inside out, with hard tissue inside and sensitive nerves on the outside.

      What with all the garbage and noise we've been dumping into the world's oceans over the past century, these guys must be living with the toothache from hell. It sounds like the equivalent of exposed root canals - and at least dentists can kill those nerves so we humans don't suffer the pain any more.

      Which raises an interesting question - if you're born with a toothache, and live your whole

  • The tusk is also used to connect to the Matrix
  • And we thought the human "bone" was sensitive...

  • Narwhal, not Narwhale (Score:5, Informative)

    by parkov ( 634632 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2005 @06:42AM (#14254978)
    Does anybody proofread these submissions?

  • Penis? (Score:2, Funny)

    by jav1231 ( 539129 )
    You mean, like a penis? So they're in effect dickheads?
    "He's going to be very popular with the ladies!"

  • Fascinating (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I wonder what the noodly one [venganza.org] had in mind when he created these creatures.
  • Wow, could the summary have been worded just a bit differently?
    Highly sensitive sensory organs? I would hope there isn't some evolutionary goal for mostly insensitive sensory organs, mediumly sensitive nonsensory gland (I beleive Dr. Seuss had a fully developed one) or even the dreaded exceedingly sensitive appendix wrinkle.

    Oh, and a nice warning about the NYTimes soul draining registation would have been nice.
    • Nope, because there's no evolutionary goal. None at all.
      But there are nearly-nonexistent insensitive eyes (sensory organs) in some underground rodents, there are many glands (not sensory organs, so non-sensory, to avoid the pun), that are more or less sensitive to certain stimulus, but not because they are meant to process and pass the signal further, but just activate and do their work. And in case of your appendix, during inflammation it gets exceedingly sensitive, what is commonly dreaded (ends up in su
  • "There goes a narwhale" -Rock Lobster

  • RFI (Score:3, Interesting)

    by gmby ( 205626 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2005 @07:49AM (#14255181)
    Makes me wonder if they get lots of Radio Frequency Interference. At 2.0m to 2.8m [arcticartsales.com] long they would be sensitive in the RF range of 107MHz to 149MHz.
    Any Hams/Broadcast Engineers know whats in that range of frequencys?

  • He added that the nerve endings, in addition to other readings, undoubtedly produce tactile sensations when the tusk is rubbed or touched, and that these might be interpreted as pleasurable. This tactile sense might explain why narwhals engage in what is known as "tusking," where two males gently rub tusks together, Dr. Nweeia said.

    I couldn't help snickering that this. Not because narwhals might have the gay, but how uncomfortable it makes some people to have to acknowledge this behavior when they don't

  • If they feel pressure on it, they think, "Oh, I apprear to have run into something."

    Actually, they think, "Screeeeee wooooooooo hummmm hummm eeeeeerrrrr ooooooooooo."

    It also picks up AM radio, but some would says that's not exactly an evolutionary advantage (thus proving the ID theory).

    I actually have a Narwhal anecdote: I was at a theater when I was a kid, and the movie (some adventure thing) had a quick scene with a Narwhal in it. The lady behind me leans over to her kid and says, "See? That's a Nar

  • Sensative like... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by amightywind ( 691887 )
    The close-ups showed that 10 million nerve endings tunnel from the tusk's core toward its outer surface, [and can] detect subtle changes of temperature, pressure, particle gradients and probably much else.

    You mean like a tooth?

  • Ouch, she kicked 'im right in the tusks, the poor sod.
  • is that a Narwahl in your pocket, or are you happy to see me?
  • They're endangered because everyone in China is using their tusks as boner medicine? That brings up the question. Is there any animal the Chinese aren't busy grinding up into boner medicine?
  • Though shy of humans, the animals are quite social.

    Man, it must suck to have to worry about not only being fun and charming, but not accidentally stabbing your date in the face as well.
  • Obligitory joke:

    A baby seal walked into a club...

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