How do narwhal tusks grow?

Moment of Um

American Public Media

Kids & Family, Education For Kids

4.4 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 9 January 2024

⏱️ 4 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Narwhals are sometimes called “the unicorns of the sea” because of their giant spiral tusks. It turns out that those tusks are actually a big tooth that grows right out of the narwhal’s mouth! One of our listeners wanted to know if narwhals were born with a hole in their head for the tusk, and if not, does it hurt the narwhal when the tusk comes through? We spoke with marine biologist Kristin Laidre to get the tooth – er, the truth.

If you’ve got a whale of a question for Moment of Um, you can send it to us at BrainsOn.org/contact!

Transcript

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0:00.0	From the brains behind brains on, this is the moment of umm.
0:05.0	Answering those questions that make you go.
0:10.0	Um, um,, I'm.
0:13.0	I'm, I'm,
0:14.0	I'm,
0:15.0	I'm,
0:16.0	I, um,
0:17.0	I, um,
0:18.0	um, I'm, um, I'm,
0:22.0	I'm Tara Anderson. You know some animals are so strange and amazing. I can hardly believe they're real. Pangolins, axelotels, the star-nosed mole.
0:36.0	And I'd also include in that group the unicorns of the ocean,
0:40.0	gnarwalls.
0:41.0	They're medium-sized whales who live in the Arctic and you can identify
0:45.4	them by the long tusk growing out of their heads, making them kind of look like
0:49.9	a unicorn. A couple of our listeners had a question about that tusk. a Is our walls born with holes in their head for the tusks to grow out?
1:06.5	If not, does it hurt for the tusks to grow out?
1:09.6	So great question.
1:12.1	Naurwalls are not born with a hole in their head.
1:15.0	My name is Kristen Lydra and I'm a marine biologist
1:18.0	that works at the University of Washington in Seattle.
1:21.0	The tusk is a tooth, and and that tooth just like all of our teeth
1:24.9	erupts and starts to grow in the first year of their life. So it's basically as if
	...

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