#whales and narwhals

[antiqueanimals]

Narwhals by Louis A. Sargent. From Wild Beasts of the World, Vol. Two. Written by Frank Finn, published in 1909.

Internet Archive

[tiredsurvivoronmain]

Warmup sketches of some irl oceanic animals but made more beast-like~

[plusie]

[turnstileskyline]

gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss: cetacean edition

[asterwild]

Narwhals (Monodon monoceros) are an arctic-dwelling whale species. Their tusks, spiraled teeth that can grow to over nine feet long, were once traded across the world as unicorn horns, and believed to hold medicinal properties.

Narwhals are currently listed as Least Concern by the IUCN, but like all arctic wildlife, their habitat is threatened by climate change and human activities such as oil & gas drilling, shipping, and commercial fishing.

[respect-the-locals]

🐋Daily Cetacean Fact:🐋

Narwhal: The narwhal is different from all other toothed whales in that it has no teeth in its mouth. Instead, male narwhals have a single long, straight tooth (or tusk) that protrudes two to three meters out of the upper left jaw. It is this tusk for which narwhals are best known. There are many legends about the tusk of the narwhal – it is essentially the origin of the myth of the unicorn as European whalers that were in the Arctic would catch narwhals and bring tusks back to Europe with great stories about what kind of animals the tusks were attached to. 

[namu-the-orca]

Arctic Odontocetes

And here's the three other Icelandic whales poster illustrations. All true Arctic species, roaming the frigid water of the high north. While Atlantic white-sided dolphins can occasionally be spotted along European shores, Narwhal and Belugas roam the true ice seas.

Narwhals are famous for their rather striking dentition: the huge, up to 3 meter long tusk, is hard to miss. It's actually their left canine tooth - every once in a while the right canine erupts too, making for a double-tusker. It's usually only males who are so adorned, as only a very small number of females (15%) bear tusks.

The exact function of the tusk is still debated: originally thought to be a simple weapon, now it is mostly thought to serve as a secondary sexual characteristic, inducing status in the bearer. The bigger the tooth, the sexier the man. However, researchers suspect they may have many more functions. Through the tusk run thousands of nerves which enable Narwhals to sense differences in water temperature and salinity. On top of that tusks have been observed to aid hunting and social interactions between males, and perhaps more. And the occasional Narwhal has been found with a broken tusk embedded in their cheek. So perhaps some good ole fashioned fighting happens after all, though no one has ever observed it happening.

The tuskless females survive just fine without them though and often live to be even older than males (up to 115 years!), so the advantages can't be that critical. Nevertheless it's fascinating to think about. Somewhere out there in the ice cold seas where we would freeze to death in an instant, swim whales - fellow mammals - sensing the waters with their 3 meter long canine tooth, occasionally slapping a fish unconscious. A wholly alien experience lived by an animal not so essentially different from us.

Atlantic white-sided dolphins may be far less mysterious, but nevertheless amongst my favourite delphinids. They've such beautiful markings. And the beluga... no doubt well known too as living marshmallows. I must say that youtube videos of their melons and fatty flabs being wobbled is great watching material.

Also - the "Whales of Iceland" poster is officially up for sale! You can nab one at Pappyr's website here. Not sponsored or anything, I just think the poster turned out super neat.

[marinebiology1]

Narwhals

Photo by Paul Nicklen

[thesmileroom]

WHALE — a leviathic person/enigma who presents masculine while subverting masculinity in a distinctly leviathic way

ORCA — a leviathic person/enigma who presents feminine while subverting femininity in a distinctly leviathic way

NARWHAL — a leviathic person/enigma who presents genderless/outside of the gender binary while subverting gender norms in a distinctly leviathic way

[luckiestplant]

i think about this post so often i want it to be real so badly. it would be the coolest thing ever and it should have 200 episodes

[artistmitchy]

Since my drawing practice sheet featuring birds got a lot of positive attention, I thought I'd do a second part. This time I practiced drawing marine mammals, and by marine mammals, I mean mostly Baikal seals. 🦭

[corvarrow]

A narwhal forrmynður from The White Vault! I am enamored by the idea of Underwater Vaults and the "overly large narwhal tusk" mentions so I really wanted to try drawing a forrmynður, though I've never drawn a whale in my life. I almost fell into the narwhal fact rabbit hole in the process of looking up references.

I envision the forrmynður's active forms as...not skeletal (though they can leave behind skeletons) but just really enlarged beasts with elongated/stretched features, with black "oily" skin somewhere between smooth and rough (I went with kind of textured). Posing this one was initially a little tricky because Narwhals are so friend shaped to begin with that even with the stretching and roughness it still looked pretty friend shaped for a while, LOL. Forrmynður probably do not want to be friends...with most people. 8D

[narwhalandchill]

oh my fucking god i feel. SO stupid rn at How i didnt make the (super sane very normal just absolutely. Yes. Surely) connection earlier but uhh

so anyway im now like 89% certain that whatever the "traces" of the narwhal that remain on ajax and facilitate their (ever-growing) innate connection are like. an actually fundamental aspect of it (them?) more or less.

why? because if you consider its pov just for a moment. the narwhal was literally about to depart teyvat for good. it had nearly finished consuming the primordial sea and preparing to breach surface to finish the job by eating the french for the leftovers their human bodies were made from. its an interstellar voyager it does not linger on planets it devours. it goes glug glug and it leaves.

and like if it wasnt for traveler intervening its confirmed through narzissenkreuz and renes world formula that teyvat wouldve just been destroyed. no one could have stopped the narwhal not neuvillette not focalors not anyone.

so what was the one other thing it did right before going for that french brunch? calling for ajax. getting them reunited in the primordial sea. like all the possible implications aside bc theres many different ways to speculate on the exact reasons why and the nature of that link. the point remains.

it wasnt leaving teyvat without finding him.

like the narwhal is about to fucking Dip from this cringe planet and whatever part of it that ajax carries within himself his narwhal Absolutely wanted to be reunited with. what the fuck am i supposed to read from that. hoyo???????!??! answers?!?!?!

and its not only the calling from the narwhal side itself either bc this is ALL coinciding with the growth of a 'restless power' within ajax and his vision malfunctioning (the things celestia is literally confirmed to harvest energy thru to repair its damaged authority) and his connection with the narwhal reaching an actual conscious level (arguably subconscious n emotional too bc i find it Curious his mood is poor right as the narwhal is repeatedly described as positively malding to the point its boss fight mechanic is literally a rage meter). ajax' power is growing. his destiny is starting to shift and something is drawing him to fontaine... right as the narwhal is getting close to finished with the primordial sea. funny how it overlaps eh. how it aligns 🤨🤨 why are they orbiting each other like this (they should kiss)

(& not to even Mention how ajax just Happened to get that absolutely exponential and borderline unbelievable feat of power spike in extending his foul legacy endurance as massively as he did. while. within the primordial sea. with his narwhal. who had at that point all but incorporated the power of that sea into itself. i s2g if childe was getting passive home turf co-op bonus exp with a 4x multiplier automatically the whole 40+ days 💀💀)

[plusie]

[wind-tied]

some cetacean ocs :)

[odetoscavengers]

literally the worst part about posting art online is people will so often assume i know nothing about what im painting. so often will i get comments like "ermm this isnt true" like yeah man good thing its art and not a true to life statement of fact