The narwhal tusk assembles its macroscopic helix from building blocks with opposing twists

This dataset contains radially integrated scattering data from narwhal tusk slices measured to investigate the tusk’s unique spiral structure with highly anisotropic mechanical properties. The full dataset comprises approximately 4400 scan folders, each corresponding to an line of a 2D grid scan. The subset associated with the publication by A. Rodriguez-Palomo, M. Liebi, H. Birkedal et al., “The narwhal tusk assembles its macroscopic helix from building blocks with opposing twists”, Nature Communications (2026), includes thin slices from two male narwhal tusks measured in transversal and longitudinal orientations.

The publication-relevant samples are: tusk 1, ID001 (transversal cut, scans 03115-03465), ID002 (transversal cut, scans 02714-03114), ID009 (longitudinal cut, scans 01767-02067), and ID010 (longitudinal cut, scans 00702-01077); tusk 2, ID022 (transversal cut, scans 02068-02412), ID027 (transversal cut, scans 01078-01465), ID028 (longitudinal cut, scans 02413-02713), and ID029 (longitudinal cut, scans 01466-01766). These scan ranges identify the data used in the associated article within the larger dataset.