The artist Markus Bühler described this potential hybrid according to the details passed by hunters who killed animals. Thirty years ago, the Inuit people in western Greenland made a living by whaling and shot three strange cetaceans (so-called "sea unicorns"). Their wings were like beluga whales and their tails were like narwhals. He was confused by these strange creatures, so he hung one of his skulls outside the shed. A few years later, a scientist found the skull in this area and finally took it to the Danish Museum of Natural History. This is a strange specimen: it is bigger than the skull of a white whale or a narwhal, but its teeth look somewhere in between. The hunter was interviewed through an interpreter. He described the uniform gray bodies and strange teeth of these animals, which can even be seen from his boat. Researchers believe that this whale may be a descendant of beluga and narwhal, but they can't prove it.

Now they can. In a new paper published in the journal Science Report today (June 20th), the researchers confirmed that this skull really belongs to the only known specimen of hybrid beluga narwhal. [Really? Irene Lorenz, curator of mammals at the museum, said, "We only have one specimen." No one has heard of it before or after this.

Between whales is the skull of Beruhal whale (or should it be Naruga whale? ) it's amazing. It doesn't have the tusks (actually teeth) of a typical male narwhal. Unlike a narwhal, it has teeth in its lower jaw. These teeth look reminiscent of Moby Dick's teeth, but they protrude like shovels. The teeth of beluga whales grow in a neat vertical pattern.

The skull of hybrid beluga/narwhal (middle) lacks the tusks of male narwhal (top), but it has strange teeth compared with beluga (bottom). (Mikkel H, Danish Museum of Natural History? Egh Post)Lorenzen said that because only anatomical research was conducted, the researchers could not prove that the skull really came from mixed blood. But she is an expert in extracting old DNA from bones, so she and her colleagues decided to try to solve this problem by genetic method. Lorenz told Field Science that they got into the tooth of this creature and got a sample-a poor quality and degraded sample, but it was still enough for classification. [12 strangest animal discovery]

The result is clear: this animal is male, a mixture of nearly 50-50 genes of beluga and narwhal. This shows that it is the first generation of hybrids. In order to find out which species is the parent of which species, the researchers observed the mitochondrial DNA of these animals. Mitochondrial DNA exists in the dynamics of animal cells, and it is only inherited along the mother. The mitochondrial DNA of hybrid whale is narwhal, which indicates that this whale is the offspring of narwhal mother and beluga father.

Next, the researchers extracted carbon and nitrogen from the collagen of the skull. Scientists have studied the molecular variation of carbon and nitrogen, called isotopes, which are absorbed into the body from the diet of animals. Isotopes reveal completely different patterns from beluga whales (hunting at a depth of about 1640 feet (500 meters)) or narwhals (diving at a depth of more than 2,625 feet (800 meters)).

"We can say that this carbon element is very similar to walruses and bearded seals, and they all feed on the seabed," Lorenz said.

The hybrid's strange teeth may lead it to adopt different hunting strategies from its parents. But it is hard to say whether the hybrid offspring can have their own offspring. It was an adult when it died, but little was known about the other two possible hybrids that accompanied it when the hunter shot them. According to the Inuit,

A ship sank after being shot. The other one was brought in, but its skull was left on the shore and finally washed away.

The sk map covers all possible narwhals and beluga hybrids. (Illustration: Marcus Buller; Skeleton: Mikel Hehe Tie (Danish Museum of Natural History), a hidden hybrid? Lorenz said, "It's hard to say whether the trio filmed in the mid-1980s is the only mixed-race. She said hybridization may not be common. Other cetacean researchers she has contacted have never seen this hybrid whale. The genetic data of narwhals and beluga whales show that these two species differentiated 5 million years ago, and there was no obvious hybridization number for at least 6.5438+0.25 million years. Nevertheless, lorentzen said that it would be strange luck if the Danish Museum had the only hybrid sample. Someone will hear about this research later this week, and we will hear more about hybrid varieties that we don't know, "she said.

Photo: Tracking humpback whales in the South Pacific: A spectacular photo of marine life in Greenland was first published in Life Science.