Medical News
Life
20 June 2019
An artist’s impression of the hybrid whale Markus Bühler
By Adam VaughanThe first evidence has been uncovered to show two of the Arctic’s most majestic marine creatures cross-bred. DNA analysis of an unusually shaped whale skull in a Danish museum suggests the creature was a hybrid born of a mother narwhal, a species known as unicorns of the sea for their tusks, and a father beluga whale, dubbed sea canaries for their vocal nature.
Killed by a hunter in west Greenland during the 1980s, the animal’s skull was collected by researchers in 1990, prompting a hypothesis that it was a narwhal-beluga hybrid. A Danish and Canadian team has now provided the data to confirm the idea, with genetic sequencing comparing it to live animals from the same area showing it to be 54 per cent beluga whale and 46 per cent narwhal. The results indicate it is a first-generation hybrid male.
While it is rare for animals to mate with other species, narwhals and belugas belong to the same family, Monodontidae.
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Eline Lorenzen at the Natural History Museum of Denmark says the main challenge was there was so little DNA left in the specimen. “[But] there are methods available now to get insights even with super low data,” she says.
The hybrid didn’t have the narwhal’s distinctive tusk and had a different arrangement of teeth to its parents, but beyond that we know little of how the creature would have looked. Lorenzen says that reports from the hunter say the animal was evenly grey in colour, had flippers shaped like those of belugas and a tail shaped like that of a narwhal. Concentrations of carbon and nitrogen found in the skull imply the hybrid ate different food from its parents, feeding near the sea floor.
Lorenzen says virtually nothing is known about how either parent species mate because it hasn’t been observed. The hybrid “might be a one-off thing”, she says, but on the other hand the unlikely chance of a hunter finding one and the skull making its way to a museum suggests there could be more out there.
Journal reference: Scientific Reports, DOI: 10.1038/s41598-019-44038-0
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