Narluga
A narluga (portmanteau of narwhal + beluga) is a hybrid born from mating a female narwhal and a male beluga whale.[1] Narwhals and beluga whales are both cetaceans found in the High Arctic and are the only two living members of the family Monodontidae.[2]
| Narluga | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Specimen at Zoological Museum, Copenhagen | |
Scientific classification | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Artiodactyla |
| Infraorder: | Cetacea |
| Superfamily: | Delphinoidea |
| Family: | Monodontidae |
| Hybrid: | Delphinapterus D. leucas × Monodon M. monoceros |
Discovery
The existence of narlugas had been hypothesized for decades before its discovery. There are 20 known cetacean hybrids in existence, with 7 of those occurring only in captivity.[3] In 1990, the researcher Mads Peter Heide-Jørgensen spoke to an Inuk hunter who'd captured an unusual hybrid animal that had both beluga and narwhal anatomy. When Heide-Jørgensen was shown that skull, he determined that it belonged to an unknown Monodontidae, with descriptive properties between a narwhal and a beluga. In particular, the characteristic narwhal 'horn' is anatomically a tooth; the unidentified specimen lacked a single narwhal tusk, but its teeth were spiralled, like the tusk of a narwhal.[4][3]
The hybrid genetics of the narluga was confirmed in 2019 when the genome of the specimen was sequenced.[1]
References
- Kovrind, Mikkel; Eight Others. "Hybridization between two high Arctic cetaceans confirmed by genomic analysis". Archived from the original on 11 June 2020. Retrieved 6 June 2020.
- Brodie, Paul (1984). Macdonald, D. (ed.). The Encyclopedia of Mammals. New York: Facts on File. pp. 200–203. ISBN 978-0-87196-871-5.
- Jason Bittel (2019-06-27) [2019-06-26]. "The 'narluga' is a strange hybrid. But it's far from alone". The Washington Post. Washington, D.C. ISSN 0190-8286. OCLC 1330888409.
- Klein, Joanna (20 June 2019). "Meet the Narluga, Hybrid Son of a Narwhal Mom and a Beluga Whale Dad". The New York Times.