From Knowable Magazine (6/3/24)...
(Yes, I know they live on the other end of the planet, but I’ve always been fascinated by narwhals)
A lifetime of love for the charismatic narwhal
independent scientist working with the Inuit has unraveled many mysteries of the one-tusked ‘unicorn of the sea’
Martin Nweeia is a modern Renaissance man. He has a degree in English and biology, a working dental practice, and a side interest in zoology and anthropology;
he has composed for documentary films and has become an expert on narwhals — the mysterious, one-toothed “unicorns of the sea.”
The male narwhal typically hosts a roughly eight-foot-long, single exterior tusk, whose function has been a mystery for centuries. Nweeia has obtained many grants to investigate the narwhal and, in more than 20 trips to the Arctic, he has compiled ambitious logs of Indigenous knowledge about the tusk, conducted in-depth studies on the material it is composed of, and attached heart and brain monitors to narwhals to try to determine what they can sense through the protrusion.
Nweeia, whose dental surgery practice is based in Sharon, Connecticut, lectures at Harvard’s School of Dental Medicine and holds a global fellow position at the Polar Institute at the Wilson Center. He is also a research associate at the Arctic Studies Center of the Smithsonian Institution and at the Canadian Museum of Nature, and a member of the Zoonomia Consortium of Harvard/MI
