Hear the song of shy narwhals swimming through a fjord in Greenland in rare recording
Inuit hunters led researchers up a fjord in Greenland in pursuit of mysterious and shy narwhals. The geophysicists were hunting the sounds of the unique marine mammals called the “unicorns of the sea.”
The researchers caught rare recordings of narwhalsinging calls, buzzes, whistles and clicks in their traditional summer territory in the north Atlantic.
“Narwhals are difficult to study because they are notoriously shy and skittish and spend most of their time deep in the freezing Arctic Ocean,” according to the American Geophysical Union.
“Scientists often have trouble getting close enough to study them. Glacier fronts can be dangerous and hard to access, and the animals tend to swim off when approached by motorized boats,” the researchers said.
They published the new research in the American Geophysical Union’s Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans.
Evgeny Podolskiy, a geophysicist at Hokkaido University in Japan, led the research.
“Their world is the soundscape of this glacial fjord,” she said. “There are many questions we can answer by listening to glacier fjords in general.”
Podolskiy and other researchers have been studying the sound of melting glaciers for several years, according to a news release from AGU.
“I realized working in the area and not paying attention to the elephant in the room — the key endemic legendary Arctic unicorn just flowing around our glacier — was a big mistake,” he said.
Narwhals grow up to 20 feet long and the males are best known for their long tusk, which earned them the “unicorn” name and can grow up to 10 feet long, according to National Geographic.
Scientists are not sure why the species developed a long tusk, but believe it’s important in mating rituals to fight with rival males or attract females, National Geographic reports.
Narwhals can dive deeper than any other whales and hold their breath for up to 25 minutes, according to Whale and Dolphin Conservation. The organization said the longest narwhal dive on record is 1,500 meters, almost a full mile.
This story was originally published May 26, 2020 at 3:14 PM with the headline "Hear the song of shy narwhals swimming through a fjord in Greenland in rare recording."
