Narwhals
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40 free Narwhals trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The narwhal is the whale that launched a legend. For centuries its spiral tusk was sold across Europe as the horn of a unicorn, and scientists still argue about what the tusk is really for. The animal behind the myth is just as strange: a shy deep diver that spends its winters beneath thick Arctic pack ice. This quiz covers the whole story of the unicorn of the sea: the tusk and how it grows, what narwhals eat and what hunts them, how they find their way in the dark, their closest relatives, the people who have lived alongside them for thousands of years, and their odd appearances in royal treasuries, novels and films. The questions run from easy openers to a few deep cuts, so they work for a trivia night, a classroom or anyone who simply likes whales. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The word narwhal comes from an Old Norse name, possibly inspired by its mottled grey skin, meaning what?
Corpse whale
Corpse whale is the meaning of the Old Norse nárhval. The name may also reflect the narwhal's habit of floating motionless at the surface on summer days.
Q 02What was the fate of narwhals brought into captivity during repeated attempts in the 1960s and 1970s?
They died within months
They died within months each time, so the attempts stopped. In the wild, by contrast, narwhals live for around 50 years on average.
Q 03The long spiralled tusk of a male narwhal is an overgrown version of which type of tooth?
Canine
A canine forms the tusk, erupting through the lip when the whale is two or three years old and growing for life. Elephant tusks, by contrast, are incisors.
Q 04Which trait, rare in the animal kingdom, do female narwhals share with women and a few other toothed whales?
Menopause
Menopause lets female narwhals live for decades after their last calf. Females in this phase may go on protecting the calves of the pod.
Q 05In Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, which vessel is first taken for a gigantic narwhal?
The Nautilus
The Nautilus, Captain Nemo's electric submarine, is hunted as a sea monster by a US Navy frigate. The narrator learns the truth only after being thrown overboard onto its hull.
Q 06Drone footage from the Canadian Arctic in 2016 revealed narwhals using their tusks to do what while hunting?
Tap and stun fish
Narwhals were filmed using the tusk to tap and stun fish, leaving small Arctic cod easier to catch. Females usually lack a tusk yet outlive males, so it is no survival essential.
Q 07Which whale, the only other living member of the family Monodontidae, is the narwhal's closest relative?
Beluga
The beluga and the narwhal split about five million years ago yet can still interbreed. A hybrid skull from West Greenland, nicknamed a narluga, was confirmed by DNA in 2019.
Q 08Which Christmas comedy has its director, Jon Favreau, as the uncredited voice of a character called Mr. Narwhal?
Elf
Elf has Favreau voicing three creatures without credit: Mr. Narwhal, Baby Walrus and the Arctic Puffin. The 2003 film stars Will Ferrell as Buddy, a human raised by Santa's helpers.
Q 09Which Arctic land predator has been recorded waiting beside breathing holes in the ice to catch young narwhals?
Polar bear
The polar bear ambushes narwhals where they must surface to breathe. Whales crowded around a shrinking hole in the ice have nowhere else to go.
Q 10Which kingdom's coronation chair, guarded by silver lions, is made of narwhal tusk once claimed as unicorn horn?
Denmark
Denmark crowned its absolute monarchs in the chair from 1671 to 1840. Modelled on the biblical throne of Solomon, it now stands in Rosenborg Castle in Copenhagen.
Q 11Which marine predator has been observed surrounding and wiping out entire pods of narwhals in Arctic waters?
Killer whale
The killer whale, or orca, hunts narwhals in open water. Rather than try to outswim it, narwhals may slip beneath ice floes and stay submerged for as long as they can.
Q 12Which feature of most whales is replaced in the narwhal by a low ridge, probably to ease swimming under ice?
Dorsal fin
The dorsal fin is missing in narwhals, and a shallow ridge runs along the back instead. The smooth back may also make it easier for the whale to roll.
Q 13Narwhal skin is valued in the traditional Inuit diet, where fresh plants are scarce, as a source of which nutrient?
Vitamin C
Q 21What is the Inuit name for the delicacy of raw whale skin with a layer of fat, often cut from narwhals?
Muktuk
Muktuk is most often cut from bowhead whales, though narwhal is used too. It is usually eaten raw but can also be served frozen, cooked or pickled.
Q 22A male narwhal's tusk pushes out through the lip from which part of the jaw?
Upper left
Upper left is the rule, because the tusk is one of a pair of teeth embedded in the top jaw. In rare males the right one emerges too, giving them two tusks.
Q 23The narwhal's tusk can sense changes in water temperature because it contains millions of what?
Nerve endings
Nerve endings run through the tusk, making it a sensory organ as well as a badge of status. It may also detect shifts in water pressure and in the particles the water carries.
Vitamin C is plentiful in the raw skin, which is otherwise hard to come by in the far north. British explorers of the region ate whale skin to keep scurvy away.
Q 14Like most toothed whales, narwhals find prey in dark water under the ice using which technique?
Echolocation
Echolocation clicks bounce back from prey and from barriers at short range. Narwhals make the sounds by moving air between chambers near the blowhole.
Q 15About a third of a narwhal's body mass is made up of which tissue, up to 10 centimetres thick?
Blubber
Blubber insulates the narwhal against icy seas. Calves are born with only a thin layer and build it up on their mothers' fat-rich milk.
Q 16In 2025 the United Kingdom extended a law to narwhals that bans most trade in which animal material?
Ivory
Ivory from narwhal tusks and teeth now falls under the UK's Ivory Act, with exceptions for artistic and cultural artefacts. Hunters in Canada and Greenland still sell tusks carved and uncarved.
Q 17Medieval rulers prized cups and powder made from narwhal tusk, sold as unicorn horn, as protection against what?
Poison
Poison was a constant fear at royal courts, and the supposed horn was also taken for measles and rubella. Demand faded once science refuted the unicorn in the 17th century.
Q 18In Qaanaaq in Greenland, hunters still harpoon narwhals the traditional way from which handmade craft?
Kayaks
Kayaks built by hand are still used in Qaanaaq. Elsewhere in Greenland and in northern Canada, narwhal hunters work from high-speed boats with rifles.
Q 19A narwhal tusk from the wall of Fishmongers' Hall was used to fight a knife attacker on which Thames crossing?
London Bridge
London Bridge was where bystanders cornered the attacker in 2019. One of them, Darryn Frost, had grabbed the 1.5-metre tusk from the hall wall to use as a weapon.
Q 20Which naturalist gave the narwhal its scientific name, Monodon monoceros, in 1758?
Carl Linnaeus
Carl Linnaeus gave the narwhal a scientific name drawn from Ancient Greek for single-tooth and single-horn. It is still the only species in its genus.
Q 24With almost no working teeth for gripping prey, how are narwhals believed to catch fish and squid?
Sucking them in
Sucking them in is the narwhal's method: it swims up close and draws the prey into its mouth. Arctic cod and halibut were the commonest finds in one study of narwhal stomachs.
Q 25Which feature of a narwhal's neck, unusual among whales, gives it a far greater range of head movement?
Unfused vertebrae
Unfused vertebrae give the narwhal a flexible neck, where most whales have theirs locked together. Its closest living relative shares the trait.
Q 26What name is given to the mass of fat in a narwhal's forehead that focuses the sounds it makes?
Melon
The melon can be reshaped by the muscles around it, steering sound that has bounced off the sloping front of the skull. Narwhals and their relatives have unusually prominent ones.
Q 27In its 2017 assessment, the IUCN Red List placed the narwhal, with about 170,000 animals, in which category?
Least concern
Least concern is the lowest-risk category on the list. Even so, narwhals are counted among the Arctic marine mammals most exposed to climate change as sea ice declines.
Q 28Which body of water between Canada and Greenland holds around 140,000 narwhals, most of the world's total?
Baffin Bay
Baffin Bay narwhals spend the summer near northern Canada and Greenland, then travel about 1,700 km south to pass the winter in the Davis Strait.
Q 29Which English monarch was given a narwhal tusk, taken for a unicorn's horn and said to be worth £10,000?
Elizabeth I
Elizabeth I's gift shows how such tusks ranked as state presents for the kings and queens of Europe, who prized them as the horns of unicorns.
Q 30Narwhal skin changes with age until very old animals are almost entirely which colour?
White
White patches keep spreading throughout a narwhal's life. Calves are born light grey, and adults in their prime carry blackish-brown mottling.