It turns out that narwhals don’t just look like electric drills. In a wonderfully serendipitous turn of events, it turns out the big-toothed whales sound like drills as well.
Geophysicists worked with Inuit hunters last July to record rarely heard narwhal sounds in Greenland, collecting the various clicks, whistles, and pulsed tones these mammals emit. According to a study published in AGU on Tuesday, narwhals make a clicking sound to find food through echolocation, speeding up to an excited buzz the closer they get to their meal. And same, tbh.
Less relatable is the fact that whistling at strangers is much more socially acceptable amongst narwhals than humans, as they use these sharp chirrups to communicate with each other.