Did you know that April 9 …is Unicorn Day!

April 9 is Unicorn Day, known to followers as ‘the sparkliest day of the year’. To honour the mythical horned beast, we bring you the next best thing: a pod of narwhals brandishing their tusks in the Arctic Ocean. Narwhals develop only two teeth, but – in males especially – the left canine can grow into a three-metre-long spiral tusk. As the tusk juts out of the top of their head, it’s given the whale the nickname, ‘unicorn of the sea’.

For centuries narwhal tusks were sold to gullible buyers as rare unicorn horns with magical powers. These ‘unicorn horns’ were so prized for their medicinal and healing properties that in the 16th century, Queen Elizabeth I paid around A$20,000 for one (equal to the cost of building a castle back then). By the late 17th century, scientific facts started replacing superstitious beliefs and the unicorn horn market fell out of favour.

The narwhal, or narwhale, is a medium-sized toothed whale that possesses a large “tusk” from a protruding canine tooth. It lives year-round in the Arctic waters around Greenland, Canada, and Russia. It is one of two living species of whale in the family Monodontidae, along with the beluga whale. The narwhal males are distinguished by a long, straight, helical tusk, which is an elongated upper left canine. The narwhal was one of many species described by Carl Linnaeus in his publication Systema Naturae in 1758