Slime Mold Time Mold, on their blog, mentions Ole Worm, a Danish Renaissance naturalist. In 1638, he was one of the first to recognize that the horns previously thought to originate from unicorns actually came from narwhals. With that name and a research interest in horns I’m sure there’s a penis joke in there somewhere.
Worm also makes an appearance in Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez. The other Danish scientist mentioned in Arctic Dreams in connection with narwhals also happens to have an unlikely name. Christian Vibe doesn’t have a Wikipedia entry but here is a biosketch in Danish. In 1943, Vibe saw hundreds of narwhals trapped under the ice off the coast of Greenland, using an opening less than 20 feet square to get air:
Side by side they emerged so close to each other that some of them would be lifted on the backs of the others and turn a somersault with the handsome tail waving in the air … It seethed, bobbed, and splashed in the opening. With a hollow, whistling sound they inhaled the air as if sucking it in through long iron tubes. The water was greatly disturbed … and the waves washed far in over the ice.
Vibe continued to have an interesting life. In the 1960s, he introduced 27 muskoxen to Greenland’s West Coast, where there are now thousands of them.
Nehaveigur 