Fun fact: Narwhals horns may have been passed off as unicorn horns by traders in Medieval times, which explains why many depictions of unicorns in Medieval art has the horn as being longer than the body of the unicorn.
Found narwhale horn-teeth (without the rest of the animal still attached to it) have even been genuinely mistaken to be unicorn horns, and may even have been what lead people to wonder and "invent" the unicorn in the first place, as an explanation for those findings.
There was also a belief that every land animal had an aquatic partner, like horses and seahorses. So narwhals were sometimes seen as the partner to unicorns.
So basically horses are just unicorns that spend their mating season in Narnia, shedding their horn before returning to dull old Earth for the rest of the year.
Mythical unicorn found in deer form ua-cam.com/video/cB20ttaNlAQ/v-deo.html A deer with a single horn in the center of its head - much like the fabled, mythical unicorn - has been spotted in a nature preserve in Italy, park officials said Wednesday. "This is fantasy becoming reality," Gilberto Tozzi, director of the Center of Natural Sciences in Prato, told The Associated Press. "The unicorn has always been a mythological animal." The 1-year-old Roe Deer - nicknamed "Unicorn" - was born in captivity in the research center's park in the Tuscan town of Prato, near Florence, Tozzi said. He is believed to have been born with a genetic flaw; his twin has two horns. Calling it the first time he has seen such a case, Tozzi said such anomalies among deer may have inspired the myth of the unicorn. The unicorn, a horse-like creature with magical healing powers, has appeared in legends and stories throughout history, from ancient and medieval texts to the adventures of Harry Potter. "This shows that even in past times, there could have been animals with this anomaly," he said by telephone. "It's not like they dreamed it up." Single-horned deer are rare but not unheard of - but even more unusual is the central positioning of the horn, experts said. "Generally, the horn is on one side (of the head) rather than being at the center. This looks like a complex case," said Fulvio Fraticelli, scientific director of Rome's zoo. He said the position of the horn could also be the result of a trauma early in the animal's life. Other mammals are believed to contribute to the myth of the unicorn, including the narwhal, a whale with a long, spiraling tusk. Photo Unicorn found in Tuscany wildlife park www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jun/11/italy1 Unicorn deer is found in Italian preserve www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna25097986
Mythical unicorn found in deer form ua-cam.com/video/cB20ttaNlAQ/v-deo.html A deer with a single horn in the center of its head - much like the fabled, mythical unicorn - has been spotted in a nature preserve in Italy, park officials said Wednesday. "This is fantasy becoming reality," Gilberto Tozzi, director of the Center of Natural Sciences in Prato, told The Associated Press. "The unicorn has always been a mythological animal." The 1-year-old Roe Deer - nicknamed "Unicorn" - was born in captivity in the research center's park in the Tuscan town of Prato, near Florence, Tozzi said. He is believed to have been born with a genetic flaw; his twin has two horns. Calling it the first time he has seen such a case, Tozzi said such anomalies among deer may have inspired the myth of the unicorn. The unicorn, a horse-like creature with magical healing powers, has appeared in legends and stories throughout history, from ancient and medieval texts to the adventures of Harry Potter. "This shows that even in past times, there could have been animals with this anomaly," he said by telephone. "It's not like they dreamed it up." Single-horned deer are rare but not unheard of - but even more unusual is the central positioning of the horn, experts said. "Generally, the horn is on one side (of the head) rather than being at the center. This looks like a complex case," said Fulvio Fraticelli, scientific director of Rome's zoo. He said the position of the horn could also be the result of a trauma early in the animal's life. Other mammals are believed to contribute to the myth of the unicorn, including the narwhal, a whale with a long, spiraling tusk. Photo Unicorn found in Tuscany wildlife park www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jun/11/italy1 Unicorn deer is found in Italian preserve www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna25097986
Considering unicorn myth has it that they are extremely rare, a random centered horn defect or mutation in any horned/antlered species would fit the bill.
There have been late-19th-century cases where the "buds" for horn growth in baby goats were surgically moved to the center of the forehead, which ended up producing a large, pretty straight central horn. Iirc I read about it on NG round about 2000 and they said a big issue with the thus-produced unicorns was that one central horn proved way too lethal for the kind of ritualized fighting even-toed ungulates tend to get up to.
An Indian one horned rhinoceros Latin name is literally Rhinoceros unicornis, I think that if an hippopotamus is a "river horse" then a rhinoceros can be a unicorn.
A unicorn was an Arabian Oryx with two straight parallel horns that from a distance looked like one horn and some times a horn breaks in combat or the two horns grow very close together...
Haha, similarly, the word Behemoth means a hippo in a number of languages. Most mythical beasts have real word equivalents it's just boring, dragons are either komodo ones or dinosaurs, any water monster is a giant squid or a whale species, similar with myth birds being just regular ones... it's kinda hard to find mythical creatures that DON'T exist in some form irl.
also interesting to note on single horn mutations of creatures that naturally have two horns (and on the topic of mythology): Depending on where in the development of the neural crest the mutation occurs, this is also how cyclops are born. It's just when the neural crest fails to split and duplicate properly. This is also part of the reason for cleft palettes - the neural crest not coming together properly once it duplicates and not sealing all the way leaves a cleft between the two sides. There's also a lot of really interesting pattern and color mutations that can occur on the neural crest. Piebald creatures are a great example, and beautiful to boot.
I also thought about catlip clefts when wondering about two horn genes mutating to one and let me tell you, as someone who knows about Mitty from Made In Abyss, not a pretty picture.
Indeed this is an example of mutation: Mythical unicorn found in deer form ua-cam.com/video/cB20ttaNlAQ/v-deo.html A deer with a single horn in the center of its head - much like the fabled, mythical unicorn - has been spotted in a nature preserve in Italy, park officials said Wednesday. "This is fantasy becoming reality," Gilberto Tozzi, director of the Center of Natural Sciences in Prato, told The Associated Press. "The unicorn has always been a mythological animal." The 1-year-old Roe Deer - nicknamed "Unicorn" - was born in captivity in the research center's park in the Tuscan town of Prato, near Florence, Tozzi said. He is believed to have been born with a genetic flaw; his twin has two horns. Calling it the first time he has seen such a case, Tozzi said such anomalies among deer may have inspired the myth of the unicorn. The unicorn, a horse-like creature with magical healing powers, has appeared in legends and stories throughout history, from ancient and medieval texts to the adventures of Harry Potter. "This shows that even in past times, there could have been animals with this anomaly," he said by telephone. "It's not like they dreamed it up." Single-horned deer are rare but not unheard of - but even more unusual is the central positioning of the horn, experts said. "Generally, the horn is on one side (of the head) rather than being at the center. This looks like a complex case," said Fulvio Fraticelli, scientific director of Rome's zoo. He said the position of the horn could also be the result of a trauma early in the animal's life. Other mammals are believed to contribute to the myth of the unicorn, including the narwhal, a whale with a long, spiraling tusk. Photo Unicorn found in Tuscany wildlife park www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jun/11/italy1 Unicorn deer is found in Italian preserve www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna25097986
There was actualy an instance in 2018 where a reindeer was spotted with an antler growing on it's forehead. Granted it still had it's 2 other antlers, and the 3rd antler was really underdeveloped, but it was still cool to see
You get a mythical creature (unicorn) as your official national animal, and a cryptid (Nessie) as your unofficial one. Nice job Scotland! You at least have us in Canada beat -- Beavers aren't anywhere near as cool.
Funny enough, in the fossil record there were once very horselike rhinos (paraceratheres), but they seemed to have lacked horns. On the flipside, the very rhino like brontotheres were closer in relation to horses, and did have singular horns (with bone), but they were bifurcated, and their bodies were too robust. Even among extinct animals, unicorns as gracile, horse like perissodactyls with singular horns *just* barely elude us!
I am so glad that he mentioned the classical depiction of them. Because it infuriates me that people keep thinking they're just horses with horns, When the original depiction of them is so wild and, frankly, more interesting looking
Mythical unicorn found in deer form ua-cam.com/video/cB20ttaNlAQ/v-deo.html A deer with a single horn in the center of its head - much like the fabled, mythical unicorn - has been spotted in a nature preserve in Italy, park officials said Wednesday. "This is fantasy becoming reality," Gilberto Tozzi, director of the Center of Natural Sciences in Prato, told The Associated Press. "The unicorn has always been a mythological animal." The 1-year-old Roe Deer - nicknamed "Unicorn" - was born in captivity in the research center's park in the Tuscan town of Prato, near Florence, Tozzi said. He is believed to have been born with a genetic flaw; his twin has two horns. Calling it the first time he has seen such a case, Tozzi said such anomalies among deer may have inspired the myth of the unicorn. The unicorn, a horse-like creature with magical healing powers, has appeared in legends and stories throughout history, from ancient and medieval texts to the adventures of Harry Potter. "This shows that even in past times, there could have been animals with this anomaly," he said by telephone. "It's not like they dreamed it up." Single-horned deer are rare but not unheard of - but even more unusual is the central positioning of the horn, experts said. "Generally, the horn is on one side (of the head) rather than being at the center. This looks like a complex case," said Fulvio Fraticelli, scientific director of Rome's zoo. He said the position of the horn could also be the result of a trauma early in the animal's life. Other mammals are believed to contribute to the myth of the unicorn, including the narwhal, a whale with a long, spiraling tusk. Photo Unicorn found in Tuscany wildlife park www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jun/11/italy1 Unicorn deer is found in Italian preserve www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna25097986
Bonus in China they often had a more goat like body (with bonus scales), and can have a branching antler like horn or an angled but smooth protuberance. Though, technically "Qilin" could have one or two horns, and oddly enough are closely associated with giraffes, but NOT rhinos.
@@mwater_moon2865 The Chinese knew what rhinos were. They were close enough to India that they had living samples of them deliver to the emperors over period of time but what they had never seen before Was a giraffe
I couldn't agree more, even as a little girl, I thought just horses with a horn and tacky rainbow colored mane were lame compared with the pure white, cloven-hooved creatures of legends.
This. Every time we figure out we are in an ever-evolving simulation they reset us back to the furthest point the hosts can reset us to without losing whatever value they have to the research presented by our Sim.
@@Bildgesmythe In Chineses beastology, Qilin are often transplated as unicorn, and more frequently have a multi branched horn (like an antler) and a goat body. But they also don't require just a single horn to qualify, and when animals were brough back from Africa, they were more associated with giraffes than rhinos, though I'm pretty sure a Rhino would protest being loaded on a boat more than a giraffe...
Im dissapointed you didnt mention the actual Siberian unicorn! Elasmotherium sibiricum horn grew out of its forehead! Though its more like a fuzzy rhino than a horse lol
Wasn't the sum total of the plot of The Last Unicorn a unicorn gets trapped alone on land and doesn't realize the rest of its species are now Narwhals?
Beagle was certainly invoking that metaphor to be sure, but it was literally unicorns in the sea in the movie. Though humans may have seens them as narwhals. Other than king leer who knew what they were.
Beagle also has a short story about the rhino who tells the mythology professor straight up, "yeah, the whole unicorn thing was us." (The literary Red Bull is probably where the drink and formula one team come from. Different sort of wings Smedrick gets...)
Mind you Narwhal horns are made of not one tooth but two. Sure, the Deericorn would need some pretty major gene changes but it COULD also just be a matter of gradual change towards the middle and then a gene that twists the two horns around each other to form a single much stronger horn
I think the twisted shape a unicorn's horn is in suggests that it's actually two horns as you described for deericorns, which I think also re-validates the Narwhal.
Realistically, you'd get some sort of spiked (antler), and it would be higher up the face than every depiction. Would be the closest manipulated equivalent tho.
You're mistaken, It's one single tooth, usually the upper left canine, sometimes the upper right. In rare cases, they can have both canines grow into a long tusk, making the animal double-horned. A "sea bicorn", maybe?
I just went through a lot of this a few weeks ago when I was trying to make a unicorn-esque creature for my fantasy world. I ended up with the unicorns ending up in the Ruminantia suborder (next to the mouse deer, Tragulidae, and horn bearers, Pecora). Their "horn" is actually two tusks that grow upwards from the jaw, around the nasal cavity, and out the top of their snout where the two teeth will grow into each other and form a single "horn" structure. They mainly use their horns to break apart ice sheets and dig through permafrost layers to get to their food source.
Well...yeah, but their horns come out of their noses, not the frontal bone, and they're also made of keratin, not bone. Sooo...I don't think they count.
The narwal is not like an oatmeal raisin cookie! It's like a butterscotch chip cookie because it isn't what you were looking for, but it is still an absolute delight! Or maybe it's even a chocolate chip and peanut butter cookie because it's a pretty good fit and some would argue it's even better than what they were looking for, but the purists will say it isn't what they wanted.
We might have _had_ unicorns. Protoceratids, an extinct deer/antelope like artiodactyl group, had a bony horn growing from the center of their snout. They did also have two or more "traditional" horns on their head, but thos were very small in some species.
Im disappointed the Unicorn Horn headband didn't remain on for the entirw video. Can we get a reupload with you wearing it the entire time pretty please? It was *glorious*
A lot of people think of a unicorn as just a horse with a horn, but they're more akin to chimeras in old artwork. In addition to the horn, they're often depicted with the hooves and beard of a goat, along with the tail of a lion. Like other mythical beasts, they were an amalgamation of multiple creatures.
Some prehistoric deer, such as Hoplitomeryx, have central horn. Although, tbf they have 5 horn. Or Protoceratidae, which has a single central nose horn. So, central horn from bone developed twice in ancient times although it is not in horse-line.
I too use the highly technical term: "Sticky-Outy-Bits" OK, I am perhaps a few sigmas out because I PREFER Oatmeal Raisin cookies over Chocolate chip cookies.
My husband likes oatmeal, keep your raisins, cookies and thinks choco chips are meh. It's wonderful at Christmas because I can make a variety for guests, and still know all the cookies will be eaten before they can go stale and we'll each get our favs.
Back in the drug-addled sixties, a fellow calling himself “Oberon Zell-Ravenheart” (his real name was Timothy) had a little business of manufacturing living unicorns. (among other sidelines) The method was to twist together the horns of goats with a kind of brace, beginning when they were just kids. The most successful of these ‘unicorns’ was named Lancelot, and was sold to Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus, and toured with them for several years. You can find lots of pictures of Lancelot online.
Rhinos ARE classified in Scientific Context as 'Monoceros'...meaning 'Single/One Horn' (think of Triceratops, the 3-horn)....so, technically, Rhinos ARE 'Unicorns' (uni = one, Cornus = horn)! Lol
@@Grauenwolfmost berries fit the criteria for berries, it's just that 2 of the most common berries (strawberries and brambleberries) aren't actually berries.
The fact that unicorn horns typically have a clockwise twist to them suggests they could be formed from two separate horns that form a single helical structure, a bit like DNA. This fits best with the horns of certain breeds of short-tailed sheep found in the British Isles, which can have up to four (Boreray ) or six (Jacob, Hebridean, Manx Loaghtan) particularly spectacular horns. In four-horn sheep, the lower horns are smoother and coil round from the side of the skull towards the end of the jaws, while the upper horns (relevant for this discussion) are much longer and thicker, more deeply ridged, and more variable in shape, with some projecting straight up and out from the top of the skull. Crucially, the upper horns are often right next to each-other, often with only a few millimetres between them, as would be required for a unicorn's horn formed from two helically-coiled horns.
I think if we really wanted it, we could get a Goat Unicorn. Like you said, we can do this with surgery, moving the cells to the centre. But I don't think the Unicorn is truly one horn I think it's two horns spiralling into each other which is much easier to selectively breed for. All you need is to measure the base of the horns, select for closeness first, then narrow, then shape a few hundred generations, and we'll get a true Unicorn.
The original unicorn was as, described in early sources, a swift, horse-sized white animal with a reddish neck and shoulder. This exactly fits a large Oryx gazelle I saw in Dubbo Zoo. About 15 hands high in horse terms. In profile it looks as if it had only one horn, and fighting males often lose one. Note that the heraldic unicorn always is shown with cloven hooves, so t's clearly not a horse. Later the one-horned Indian Rhino was confused and amamlgamated with it, in travellers' tales. The Narwhal's horn or tusk was commercially available and was another add-on feature. I have no idea how it became associated with the Royal Arms of Scotland, but it makes a change from lions.
Narwhals are mammals that went back into the oceans,(a bunch of long time ago), they weigh like huge fat horses, got a big ole bucktooth, mind you, won't win any pageants on account of it... Just like horses ...😅😂
Well, there could be a tweak to the unicorn mythos. Maybe just have it so the spiral is in reality two separate growths intertwining? That could happen (no doubt there are many parts of anatomy that require multiple discrete parts intertwining). It could even explain the spiral appearance itself, since a single bony growth would just as likely look like a smooth cone.
Bit of a nitpick but; Deer and their relatives like elk do not have horns. Horns grow from the base while antlers grow from the tips. This is also why you will never find an animal with branching horns; the growing bit of the horn is still on the skull. Only antlers can branch
...Honestly, if rhinos are anything to go by, the only thing that'd be "magical" about unicorns would be how quickly they could skewer you before you could even say "UNICORN, RUN"; if they actually ever existed at some point, I sure am glad they don't anymore.
srsly?! that's something me gotta go read! i've seen/read the Reluctant Dragon as a fruity and dramatic pacifist, but i don't think ANYONE has perceive them as eldritch horrors before, and it sounds AWESOME!!!
@@Echo81Rumple83 Seriously, it’s a novella related to a much longer series Stoss wrote called The Laundry Files, which is set in a world of eldritch horrors.
unicorns in the elder scrolls lore are also pretty dangerus, the are especifically created by a god to be the ultime hunting prey, faster than any other creature (capable of outrunning a flying dragon), with a horn that can (and will) be used as a weapon and that can grow again in less than 1 minute in the case of it beeing broken, so . . . yeah pretty deadly if you ask me@@Echo81Rumple83
There’s a whole history of mysticism and alchemy around the unicorn horn. Queen Elizabeth I, among other rulers, had a unicorn horn cup supposed to detect poison or cleanse it; the horn, here, representing pure or clear waters. W. B. Yeats and Aleister Crowley both used the horn to symbolise passage through death to eternal life, although Crowley might have been referring to “the little death”… Unicorns were also believed to eat human flesh; that’s an eldritch horror right there.
There’s also an anime where it’s angles designing animals. They have an episode where they try and make a unicorn, because the horse was a big deal for them and they want to improve it. But it just doesn’t work
From an article I read last week. "According to KIRO7, an elk with an antler sticking out straight from its forehead was discovered on a trail cam in Tampico, Washington. Kyle Garrison, a representative with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, told the outlet that the antler is an uncommon abnormality, and a naturally occurring phenomenon."
Some say the Unicron was a mistaken description of a Rhino. A European sailor went to Africa told somebody he met at an Alehouse about it. He would have described it as a " Horse with a hron " and the legend was born
Since many older depictions of unicorns show artiodactyls, and often ones looking like some kind of goat, that would be the way to get them. Take for example a markhor and tweak its genes only a little bit to make them grow their screwed horns into one another. Then make it a bit bigger, so you could theoretically ride it. Done - a Mountain Unicorn (but probably only males would be really impressive). Alternatively you could try e.g. a Kobus for a Savannah Unicorn.😁
I thought for sure the papilloma virus was gonna be mentioned, it's the reason why Jackalopes "exists", a horse with a weird keratin growth on it's head would just explain so much.
Good job on this one. I did notice, like in a lot of these, that you mentioned the goats, but down played it quite a lot. We had goats, and knew a lot of people with goats, and yes, we owned two unicorns. They were actually called unicorns. You don't see them that much, because goats get debudded usually. And when it happens, it's an injury very early on in life. It isn't that they were born with just one horn. It's that they bump their heads just right, and one or both horns are damaged, and they tend to grow around each other. It's really not that uncommon. Almost certainly a vet will remove those deformed horns. They tend to start poking into the neck or back of the head. THAT'S why you don't see unicorns. The horns don't grow straight! The reason why in apparently the 20th century they decided they needed to be horses is completely different. And yep. Deer do it to sometimes. Probably other animals do too. Now the first part is where I thought we might have a problem, where it had to be a horse. None of you putting out interesting little videos on unicorns seem to have had much of a look at Greek literature. Did you know who the first unicorn was? Peter Beagle knew. She was a goat named Amalthea! Zeus, as a baby, broke one of her horns off. None of us can prove the next thought, of course. Who knows what ancient Greeks were thinking. But we figured, when I was a teenager, that people sometimes did see these goats and deer with these types of deformities and made up a little story. Something like "Oh! That goat only has one horn. Well, maybe that was, umm.... the goat some hero nursed form as an infant. Maybe a god. Zeus fits the narrative. So, say, he accidentally busted her horn off. Yep. Makes sense. That must be how that happens. So see? It isn't so uncommon, and it's real. Just it's not anywhere as much fun as what the myth somehow evolved into over the centuries. We just can't see it, because a talking horse with a sparkly mane and one nice, straight horn is so much more common. Who wants to get a sparkly tee shirt, or lunch box, or very expensive tapestry with the picture of a goat with a broken horn poking into his or her neck? But again, you came SO close! I'm really impressed. You just didn't look far enough into the obscure daily operations of dairy goat farming. Some day, I'll talk someone into talking about it.
If you Boane wash out all the cells and carve it into shape, could you then colonize it with horse stem cells and surgically implant the horn like dentists do with artificial teeth but with a bypass to supply the bone with blood? The peg would need to be titanium for bio compatibility.
There’s a manga called Heaven’s Design Team that really incredibly covers why fictional animal designs wouldn’t work biologically, and why real animals can have such strange features and still survive. Highly recommend for anyone who enjoys this sort of content.
For what I can gather it's not clear how many times headgear ornamentation evolved within Pecora. Especially antlers seems to be quite distinctive as in they follow a different developmental pathway. One, of few possible, hypothesis contends that deer-ancestor lost their ancestral pecoran headgear and evolved a new one. If you look at the fossil record there are at least a couple of examples of independent evolution of bony headgears within the "horse-adjecent" clade (Euungulata?) considered in this video: Brontotheres, early diverging perissodactyls, and Protoceratids which might be camel.relatives.
Hey. This is totally unrelated. But where can I find that Flamingo shirt? The video was really informative, but I am really stuck on how great that shirt is.
Tbh, considering how fast and strong horses are as they are, and where they live, I don't think they would be in particular need of a horn. It would be cool to see, sure, but, hey, apparently it wasn't necessary for them to be badasses that we couldn't resist getting into our lives.
A guy surgically alters goat's horn buds, so they grow a single central horn. He has a whole herd of unicorn goats. They're perfectly healthy and happy and none the wiser that they're surgically altered
@@LKMNOP Considering they're not in pain, it seems somewhat more humane than the agony that brachycephalic dog breeds go through for far more superficial and selfish purposes
@@LKMNOPI mean it’s no worse than people lopping off dog tails and stuff, or breeding dogs to be the way they are. It’s dumb but overall completely harmless in comparison
The one I saw wasn't surgically altered, he had an attachment that he slightly rotates several times a day. I thought about it for a buck we had, but we couldn't be home enough between work and school. Now I'm trying to remember who sold them?
"Well, actually" I have read that the one-horned altered goats have an advantage over other goats and tend to bully them. So WE may be doing it for looks & feels, but the goats themselves are arguably better off.
I knew the rhinos were coming. But the horn should be above the eyes, in the forehead. Still it's good to know that SciShow is asking the important questions! ;-)
Some years ago they produced hybrids between a Russian sturgeon and an American paddlefish, two clades whose last comon ancestor lived 180 million years ago, so we could make some horse-rhino hybrids and see what happens. After all, they only split 50 million years ago!
This question has nothing to do directly with unicorns, but as I’ve been binge-watching SciShow, I am struck with one undeniable fact: I wish I knew a lot more about science. What are some good resources-books, magazines, websites-for learning about science, nature, and technology?
Fun fact: Narwhals horns may have been passed off as unicorn horns by traders in Medieval times, which explains why many depictions of unicorns in Medieval art has the horn as being longer than the body of the unicorn.
And also twisted
Found narwhale horn-teeth (without the rest of the animal still attached to it) have even been genuinely mistaken to be unicorn horns, and may even have been what lead people to wonder and "invent" the unicorn in the first place, as an explanation for those findings.
Narwhals, Narwhals, swimming in the ocean!
Causing a commotion 'cause they are so awesome!
@@MonkeyJedi99 Love this!❤❤❤
There was also a belief that every land animal had an aquatic partner, like horses and seahorses. So narwhals were sometimes seen as the partner to unicorns.
So basically horses are just unicorns that spend their mating season in Narnia, shedding their horn before returning to dull old Earth for the rest of the year.
Mythical unicorn found in deer form
ua-cam.com/video/cB20ttaNlAQ/v-deo.html
A deer with a single horn in the center of its head - much like the fabled, mythical unicorn - has been spotted in a nature preserve in Italy, park officials said Wednesday.
"This is fantasy becoming reality," Gilberto Tozzi, director of the Center of Natural Sciences in Prato, told The Associated Press. "The unicorn has always been a mythological animal."
The 1-year-old Roe Deer - nicknamed "Unicorn" - was born in captivity in the research center's park in the Tuscan town of Prato, near Florence, Tozzi said.
He is believed to have been born with a genetic flaw; his twin has two horns.
Calling it the first time he has seen such a case, Tozzi said such anomalies among deer may have inspired the myth of the unicorn.
The unicorn, a horse-like creature with magical healing powers, has appeared in legends and stories throughout history, from ancient and medieval texts to the adventures of Harry Potter.
"This shows that even in past times, there could have been animals with this anomaly," he said by telephone. "It's not like they dreamed it up."
Single-horned deer are rare but not unheard of - but even more unusual is the central positioning of the horn, experts said.
"Generally, the horn is on one side (of the head) rather than being at the center. This looks like a complex case," said Fulvio Fraticelli, scientific director of Rome's zoo. He said the position of the horn could also be the result of a trauma early in the animal's life.
Other mammals are believed to contribute to the myth of the unicorn, including the narwhal, a whale with a long, spiraling tusk.
Photo
Unicorn found in Tuscany wildlife park
www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jun/11/italy1
Unicorn deer is found in Italian preserve
www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna25097986
Mythical unicorn found in deer form
ua-cam.com/video/cB20ttaNlAQ/v-deo.html
A deer with a single horn in the center of its head - much like the fabled, mythical unicorn - has been spotted in a nature preserve in Italy, park officials said Wednesday.
"This is fantasy becoming reality," Gilberto Tozzi, director of the Center of Natural Sciences in Prato, told The Associated Press. "The unicorn has always been a mythological animal."
The 1-year-old Roe Deer - nicknamed "Unicorn" - was born in captivity in the research center's park in the Tuscan town of Prato, near Florence, Tozzi said.
He is believed to have been born with a genetic flaw; his twin has two horns.
Calling it the first time he has seen such a case, Tozzi said such anomalies among deer may have inspired the myth of the unicorn.
The unicorn, a horse-like creature with magical healing powers, has appeared in legends and stories throughout history, from ancient and medieval texts to the adventures of Harry Potter.
"This shows that even in past times, there could have been animals with this anomaly," he said by telephone. "It's not like they dreamed it up."
Single-horned deer are rare but not unheard of - but even more unusual is the central positioning of the horn, experts said.
"Generally, the horn is on one side (of the head) rather than being at the center. This looks like a complex case," said Fulvio Fraticelli, scientific director of Rome's zoo. He said the position of the horn could also be the result of a trauma early in the animal's life.
Other mammals are believed to contribute to the myth of the unicorn, including the narwhal, a whale with a long, spiraling tusk.
Photo
Unicorn found in Tuscany wildlife park
www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jun/11/italy1
Unicorn deer is found in Italian preserve
www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna25097986
Science is the study of torturing animals with toxic chemicals and disease.
Honestly the idea of a deericorn being a rare mutant that cant pass on the centered single horn trait fits the concept of a unicorn best imo
Considering unicorn myth has it that they are extremely rare, a random centered horn defect or mutation in any horned/antlered species would fit the bill.
There have been late-19th-century cases where the "buds" for horn growth in baby goats were surgically moved to the center of the forehead, which ended up producing a large, pretty straight central horn. Iirc I read about it on NG round about 2000 and they said a big issue with the thus-produced unicorns was that one central horn proved way too lethal for the kind of ritualized fighting even-toed ungulates tend to get up to.
An Indian one horned rhinoceros Latin name is literally Rhinoceros unicornis, I think that if an hippopotamus is a "river horse" then a rhinoceros can be a unicorn.
Latin name for the unicorn is monoceros - one horn. Rhinoceros is Latin for nose horn.
A unicorn was an Arabian Oryx with two straight parallel horns that from a distance looked like one horn and some times a horn breaks in combat or the two horns grow very close together...
@@VarianAlastair Wrong language. Monokeros is Greek. Unicornu is the Latin translation of monokeros. Rhinokeros is also Greek.
Haha, similarly, the word Behemoth means a hippo in a number of languages.
Most mythical beasts have real word equivalents it's just boring, dragons are either komodo ones or dinosaurs, any water monster is a giant squid or a whale species, similar with myth birds being just regular ones... it's kinda hard to find mythical creatures that DON'T exist in some form irl.
also interesting to note on single horn mutations of creatures that naturally have two horns (and on the topic of mythology):
Depending on where in the development of the neural crest the mutation occurs, this is also how cyclops are born. It's just when the neural crest fails to split and duplicate properly. This is also part of the reason for cleft palettes - the neural crest not coming together properly once it duplicates and not sealing all the way leaves a cleft between the two sides.
There's also a lot of really interesting pattern and color mutations that can occur on the neural crest. Piebald creatures are a great example, and beautiful to boot.
I also thought about catlip clefts when wondering about two horn genes mutating to one and let me tell you, as someone who knows about Mitty from Made In Abyss, not a pretty picture.
Indeed this is an example of mutation:
Mythical unicorn found in deer form
ua-cam.com/video/cB20ttaNlAQ/v-deo.html
A deer with a single horn in the center of its head - much like the fabled, mythical unicorn - has been spotted in a nature preserve in Italy, park officials said Wednesday.
"This is fantasy becoming reality," Gilberto Tozzi, director of the Center of Natural Sciences in Prato, told The Associated Press. "The unicorn has always been a mythological animal."
The 1-year-old Roe Deer - nicknamed "Unicorn" - was born in captivity in the research center's park in the Tuscan town of Prato, near Florence, Tozzi said.
He is believed to have been born with a genetic flaw; his twin has two horns.
Calling it the first time he has seen such a case, Tozzi said such anomalies among deer may have inspired the myth of the unicorn.
The unicorn, a horse-like creature with magical healing powers, has appeared in legends and stories throughout history, from ancient and medieval texts to the adventures of Harry Potter.
"This shows that even in past times, there could have been animals with this anomaly," he said by telephone. "It's not like they dreamed it up."
Single-horned deer are rare but not unheard of - but even more unusual is the central positioning of the horn, experts said.
"Generally, the horn is on one side (of the head) rather than being at the center. This looks like a complex case," said Fulvio Fraticelli, scientific director of Rome's zoo. He said the position of the horn could also be the result of a trauma early in the animal's life.
Other mammals are believed to contribute to the myth of the unicorn, including the narwhal, a whale with a long, spiraling tusk.
Photo
Unicorn found in Tuscany wildlife park
www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jun/11/italy1
Unicorn deer is found in Italian preserve
www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna25097986
Neural crest defects can be even nastier than cyclopia. Anencephaly and acrania are some that come to mind
There was actualy an instance in 2018 where a reindeer was spotted with an antler growing on it's forehead. Granted it still had it's 2 other antlers, and the 3rd antler was really underdeveloped, but it was still cool to see
The Unicorn is the National Animals of Scotland.
Do not come between us and our unicorns.
Lol fr 😂
Love that we get a mythical creature
Yes, the only country that has a mythical creature as it's national animal. I can respect that highly.
@@LKMNOP Wales have a dragon. That's a mythical creature too.
There’s quite a few, I know China has the dragon as their national animal and North Korea has a winged horse. There’s a few more I can’t remember.
You get a mythical creature (unicorn) as your official national animal, and a cryptid (Nessie) as your unofficial one. Nice job Scotland! You at least have us in Canada beat -- Beavers aren't anywhere near as cool.
I've always imagined that a unicorn's horn begins as two fairly close together that twist into a double helix.
Funny enough, in the fossil record there were once very horselike rhinos (paraceratheres), but they seemed to have lacked horns.
On the flipside, the very rhino like brontotheres were closer in relation to horses, and did have singular horns (with bone), but they were bifurcated, and their bodies were too robust.
Even among extinct animals, unicorns as gracile, horse like perissodactyls with singular horns *just* barely elude us!
That's because the horns break off after death and aren't preserved in the fossil record
I am so glad that he mentioned the classical depiction of them. Because it infuriates me that people keep thinking they're just horses with horns, When the original depiction of them is so wild and, frankly, more interesting looking
Mythical unicorn found in deer form
ua-cam.com/video/cB20ttaNlAQ/v-deo.html
A deer with a single horn in the center of its head - much like the fabled, mythical unicorn - has been spotted in a nature preserve in Italy, park officials said Wednesday.
"This is fantasy becoming reality," Gilberto Tozzi, director of the Center of Natural Sciences in Prato, told The Associated Press. "The unicorn has always been a mythological animal."
The 1-year-old Roe Deer - nicknamed "Unicorn" - was born in captivity in the research center's park in the Tuscan town of Prato, near Florence, Tozzi said.
He is believed to have been born with a genetic flaw; his twin has two horns.
Calling it the first time he has seen such a case, Tozzi said such anomalies among deer may have inspired the myth of the unicorn.
The unicorn, a horse-like creature with magical healing powers, has appeared in legends and stories throughout history, from ancient and medieval texts to the adventures of Harry Potter.
"This shows that even in past times, there could have been animals with this anomaly," he said by telephone. "It's not like they dreamed it up."
Single-horned deer are rare but not unheard of - but even more unusual is the central positioning of the horn, experts said.
"Generally, the horn is on one side (of the head) rather than being at the center. This looks like a complex case," said Fulvio Fraticelli, scientific director of Rome's zoo. He said the position of the horn could also be the result of a trauma early in the animal's life.
Other mammals are believed to contribute to the myth of the unicorn, including the narwhal, a whale with a long, spiraling tusk.
Photo
Unicorn found in Tuscany wildlife park
www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jun/11/italy1
Unicorn deer is found in Italian preserve
www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna25097986
Bonus in China they often had a more goat like body (with bonus scales), and can have a branching antler like horn or an angled but smooth protuberance. Though, technically "Qilin" could have one or two horns, and oddly enough are closely associated with giraffes, but NOT rhinos.
@@mwater_moon2865 The Chinese knew what rhinos were. They were close enough to India that they had living samples of them deliver to the emperors over period of time but what they had never seen before Was a giraffe
I couldn't agree more, even as a little girl, I thought just horses with a horn and tacky rainbow colored mane were lame compared with the pure white, cloven-hooved creatures of legends.
Because they stab people and then the illusion is shattered to the point we have to reboot the whole damn universe again.
This. Every time we figure out we are in an ever-evolving simulation they reset us back to the furthest point the hosts can reset us to without losing whatever value they have to the research presented by our Sim.
I mean, they were supposedly pretty stabhappy in medieval stories. The only thing that could calm them down were pure maidens
@@JeffOnhill oh dear, I revealed too much.
Oh my goodness I am completely sober but I would love to read that comment again when I am not. That's one heck of a mind trip
😂😅😊
I never thought I would say this about a huge beast capable of tossing vehicles with ease, but those rhino clips were so cute.
I saw a short not too long ago of a baby rhino being brushed with a broom and it might be the cutest baby animal video circulating right now.
"um actually", traditional unicorns are far more chimeric than just horses with horns. Different hooves, beards, tails, and other changes.
More goat features IMHO
And the thing with the virgins
@@Bildgesmythe In Chineses beastology, Qilin are often transplated as unicorn, and more frequently have a multi branched horn (like an antler) and a goat body. But they also don't require just a single horn to qualify, and when animals were brough back from Africa, they were more associated with giraffes than rhinos, though I'm pretty sure a Rhino would protest being loaded on a boat more than a giraffe...
@@eljanrimsa5843the creeps.
And that's why he set a basis of what he is defining as unicorn for this video.
Im dissapointed you didnt mention the actual Siberian unicorn! Elasmotherium sibiricum horn grew out of its forehead! Though its more like a fuzzy rhino than a horse lol
Narwhals, Narwhals
Swimming in the ocean
Causing a commotion
Coz they are so awesome
They're like an underwater unicorn
They got a kick ass facial horn
They are defenders of the sea
They stop cthulu eating ye
They are the Jedi of the sea!
Pretty big and pretty wide
pretty big, and pretty white.
Will beat a polar bear up in a fight.
Narwhales, they are narwhales
--Just dont let em touch your balls--
@@Efflorescenteythey beat a polar bear in a fight
Wasn't the sum total of the plot of The Last Unicorn a unicorn gets trapped alone on land and doesn't realize the rest of its species are now Narwhals?
For the most part. Although it was the Red Bull, working under the king, who pushed them into the sea.
Omg, I'd never though of that angle to trapping thee unicorns in the sea 😂
Beagle was certainly invoking that metaphor to be sure, but it was literally unicorns in the sea in the movie. Though humans may have seens them as narwhals. Other than king leer who knew what they were.
@@jaredkennedy6576why the F a Formula 1 team does pushing mythical creatures under the sea?
Beagle also has a short story about the rhino who tells the mythology professor straight up, "yeah, the whole unicorn thing was us." (The literary Red Bull is probably where the drink and formula one team come from. Different sort of wings Smedrick gets...)
Mind you Narwhal horns are made of not one tooth but two. Sure, the Deericorn would need some pretty major gene changes but it COULD also just be a matter of gradual change towards the middle and then a gene that twists the two horns around each other to form a single much stronger horn
I think the twisted shape a unicorn's horn is in suggests that it's actually two horns as you described for deericorns, which I think also re-validates the Narwhal.
Realistically, you'd get some sort of spiked (antler), and it would be higher up the face than every depiction. Would be the closest manipulated equivalent tho.
You're mistaken, It's one single tooth, usually the upper left canine, sometimes the upper right. In rare cases, they can have both canines grow into a long tusk, making the animal double-horned. A "sea bicorn", maybe?
@@ConontheBinarian That's not their forehead...
I'm sad the horn wasn't on for whole video :(
It was glorious.
Same
I just went through a lot of this a few weeks ago when I was trying to make a unicorn-esque creature for my fantasy world. I ended up with the unicorns ending up in the Ruminantia suborder (next to the mouse deer, Tragulidae, and horn bearers, Pecora). Their "horn" is actually two tusks that grow upwards from the jaw, around the nasal cavity, and out the top of their snout where the two teeth will grow into each other and form a single "horn" structure. They mainly use their horns to break apart ice sheets and dig through permafrost layers to get to their food source.
More thumbnails like this, please! Loved it 😂
We do have Unicorns. They're kinda grey and stumpy and some people insist on calling them Rhinoceros, but they do exist.
Exactly! Rhinos are just chubby unicorns!
Well...yeah, but their horns come out of their noses, not the frontal bone, and they're also made of keratin, not bone. Sooo...I don't think they count.
Replying to the title instead of the video?
Not to worry, they are high capacity assault unicorns.
Rhinoceros unicornis.
The narwal is not like an oatmeal raisin cookie! It's like a butterscotch chip cookie because it isn't what you were looking for, but it is still an absolute delight! Or maybe it's even a chocolate chip and peanut butter cookie because it's a pretty good fit and some would argue it's even better than what they were looking for, but the purists will say it isn't what they wanted.
They're a buttery ocean-ie flavour, but dark meat. Heavy on the fat too😋
“Narwhals, narwhals swimming in the ocean causing a commotion”. 🎶
'Cause they are so awesome!
That thumbnail is pretty great, I've got to say.
What about the extinct Hoplitomeryx? They had 5 horns, but 1 was centered at least. Also, fangs.
Now that I learned of this creature's existence, I absolutely need @AshleyOttesen to make an Angel Steve video of it.
We might have _had_ unicorns. Protoceratids, an extinct deer/antelope like artiodactyl group, had a bony horn growing from the center of their snout. They did also have two or more "traditional" horns on their head, but thos were very small in some species.
So the earth almost evolved triceratops twice...?
Petition to have Reid host all further episodes wearing that headband.
"the wind blowing through your HAIR" made me laugh quite a bit.
Same, what a champ 👏🏻
I was going to comment on this if no one else hadn't already. 😂
Im disappointed the Unicorn Horn headband didn't remain on for the entirw video.
Can we get a reupload with you wearing it the entire time pretty please? It was *glorious*
Love this guy... So entertaining plus science!
EAT YOUR OATMEAL COOKIES!
Love it.
OATMEAL RAISIN
I will! I prefer them over chocolate chip.
A lot of people think of a unicorn as just a horse with a horn, but they're more akin to chimeras in old artwork. In addition to the horn, they're often depicted with the hooves and beard of a goat, along with the tail of a lion. Like other mythical beasts, they were an amalgamation of multiple creatures.
Some prehistoric deer, such as Hoplitomeryx, have central horn. Although, tbf they have 5 horn. Or Protoceratidae, which has a single central nose horn. So, central horn from bone developed twice in ancient times although it is not in horse-line.
it seems to me that when it comes to the rut of a horse, there is no need for a horn, it's about who can run more quickly
Yeah I couldn't think of a natural benefit a single horn would give a horse.
Didn't need horses, moose and elk fit that ecological niche, and Bison, took up the plains. Non antlered vegetarian animals don't do well here.
Horses don't need a horn, because there are pretty good at fighting by kicking and biting, be it predators or rival horses.
That thumbnail is a pure work of art!
I too use the highly technical term: "Sticky-Outy-Bits"
OK, I am perhaps a few sigmas out because I PREFER Oatmeal Raisin cookies over Chocolate chip cookies.
My husband likes oatmeal, keep your raisins, cookies and thinks choco chips are meh. It's wonderful at Christmas because I can make a variety for guests, and still know all the cookies will be eaten before they can go stale and we'll each get our favs.
Back in the drug-addled sixties, a fellow calling himself “Oberon Zell-Ravenheart” (his real name was Timothy) had a little business of manufacturing living unicorns. (among other sidelines)
The method was to twist together the horns of goats with a kind of brace, beginning when they were just kids. The most successful of these ‘unicorns’ was named Lancelot, and was sold to Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus, and toured with them for several years.
You can find lots of pictures of Lancelot online.
You forgot to mention that the Indian rhino scientific name is Rhinoceros unicornis
And Naso unicornis is the blue-spine unicornfish
I appreciate SciShow's dedication to answer such an unserious question so seriously haha.
Rhinos ARE classified in Scientific Context as 'Monoceros'...meaning 'Single/One Horn' (think of Triceratops, the 3-horn)....so, technically, Rhinos ARE 'Unicorns' (uni = one, Cornus = horn)! Lol
The constellation Monoceros is of a unicorn, too.
It is said that the unicorn may have at least in part be inspired by the rhinoceros.
@@Grauenwolfmost berries fit the criteria for berries, it's just that 2 of the most common berries (strawberries and brambleberries) aren't actually berries.
Monodon monoceros is the scientific name of the narwhal, not the rhino. The scientific name of the Indian rhino is already Rhinoceros unicornis
The fact that unicorn horns typically have a clockwise twist to them suggests they could be formed from two separate horns that form a single helical structure, a bit like DNA.
This fits best with the horns of certain breeds of short-tailed sheep found in the British Isles, which can have up to four (Boreray ) or six (Jacob, Hebridean, Manx Loaghtan) particularly spectacular horns. In four-horn sheep, the lower horns are smoother and coil round from the side of the skull towards the end of the jaws, while the upper horns (relevant for this discussion) are much longer and thicker, more deeply ridged, and more variable in shape, with some projecting straight up and out from the top of the skull. Crucially, the upper horns are often right next to each-other, often with only a few millimetres between them, as would be required for a unicorn's horn formed from two helically-coiled horns.
I appreciate that you included the narwhal as a unicorn. It very much is a unicorn and I will die on this hill 😂😂
I can’t stop laughing at that image of the horse with a fingernail slapped on its forehead 😂
That pic of the horse with the French gel nail on it was honestly genius
I think if we really wanted it, we could get a Goat Unicorn. Like you said, we can do this with surgery, moving the cells to the centre. But I don't think the Unicorn is truly one horn I think it's two horns spiralling into each other which is much easier to selectively breed for. All you need is to measure the base of the horns, select for closeness first, then narrow, then shape a few hundred generations, and we'll get a true Unicorn.
there is an old tapestry I think in Hampton court that has a unicorn on it which looks more like a goat with a single horn than a horse.
That unicorn alice band on a scishow video ... ABOUT UNICORNS ... is so coooool!
Fry: I want a Unicorn!
Lars: We have Unicorn at home!
So sad that Lars was doomed.
The host has a great voice and cadence.
What about the Brontotheres? They also grew protrusions from the head, independantly evolved.
And they were perissodactyls too :)
I have ALWAYS thought the same question as this video asks! Such validation!
Fun fact: there was actually a species of giant rhino that lived during the Ice Age, called the Siberian Unicorn.
This was funny and educational!
I LOVE magical science videos :) Thank you for this one!
The original unicorn was as, described in early sources, a swift, horse-sized white animal with a reddish neck and shoulder. This exactly fits a large Oryx gazelle I saw in Dubbo Zoo. About 15 hands high in horse terms. In profile it looks as if it had only one horn, and fighting males often lose one. Note that the heraldic unicorn always is shown with cloven hooves, so t's clearly not a horse. Later the one-horned Indian Rhino was confused and amamlgamated with it, in travellers' tales. The Narwhal's horn or tusk was commercially available and was another add-on feature. I have no idea how it became associated with the Royal Arms of Scotland, but it makes a change from lions.
Hahah a narwhal being a "horned horse cousin" phylogentically is the funniest take.
Narwhals are mammals that went back into the oceans,(a bunch of long time ago), they weigh like huge fat horses, got a big ole bucktooth, mind you, won't win any pageants on account of it... Just like horses ...😅😂
The callbacks to the oatmeal cookie and other jokes were well done.
We *want* oatmeal raisin cookies!!! 🍪 🍪 🍪
Add walnuts and it's cookie perfection
@@Bildgesmythe you can have all the ones with walnuts in them 😉
Well, there could be a tweak to the unicorn mythos. Maybe just have it so the spiral is in reality two separate growths intertwining? That could happen (no doubt there are many parts of anatomy that require multiple discrete parts intertwining). It could even explain the spiral appearance itself, since a single bony growth would just as likely look like a smooth cone.
Bit of a nitpick but;
Deer and their relatives like elk do not have horns. Horns grow from the base while antlers grow from the tips. This is also why you will never find an animal with branching horns; the growing bit of the horn is still on the skull. Only antlers can branch
Rhino=Unicorn.
Manatee=mermaid
And early explorers expectations were low and ability to hype up a story second to none.
Rhinos are gym jacked unicorns. Also very majestic! and a warning about not skipping leg day.
Thumbs up that he should’ve kept the unicorn horn and ears on!!!!!
So the one-off one-horned deer spotted in Italy was a unique-corn.
One of the best episodes. Cheers 🎉
We have lots of unicorns.
Rhino: Heavy assault unicorn.
Narwhals: Submersible unicorn.
Sail Fish: High speed submersible unicorn.
Rhino-horned Lizard: Arboreal unicorn
Cassowary: Assault pursuit unicorn.
Feel free to add more...
We have thousands of them in Scotland! It is our main form of transport.
...Honestly, if rhinos are anything to go by, the only thing that'd be "magical" about unicorns would be how quickly they could skewer you before you could even say "UNICORN, RUN"; if they actually ever existed at some point, I sure am glad they don't anymore.
As long as the horn grows after birth - no problem.
Rhino horn is not quite hair but definitely not nail. Plenty of research has been done.
I really really enjoyed this video. You did a great job man all of you whoever created it it just made me smile it made me laugh. I loved it.
OMUnicorn! The thumbnail for this video 😂
and all the pun-funnies. Thank you! 👏👏👏
Thanks to Charles Stross’ novella Equoid, I perceive unicorns as eldritch horrors.
srsly?! that's something me gotta go read! i've seen/read the Reluctant Dragon as a fruity and dramatic pacifist, but i don't think ANYONE has perceive them as eldritch horrors before, and it sounds AWESOME!!!
@@Echo81Rumple83 Seriously, it’s a novella related to a much longer series Stoss wrote called The Laundry Files, which is set in a world of eldritch horrors.
I came here to post this
unicorns in the elder scrolls lore are also pretty dangerus, the are especifically created by a god to be the ultime hunting prey, faster than any other creature (capable of outrunning a flying dragon), with a horn that can (and will) be used as a weapon and that can grow again in less than 1 minute in the case of it beeing broken, so . . . yeah pretty deadly if you ask me@@Echo81Rumple83
There’s a whole history of mysticism and alchemy around the unicorn horn. Queen Elizabeth I, among other rulers, had a unicorn horn cup supposed to detect poison or cleanse it; the horn, here, representing pure or clear waters. W. B. Yeats and Aleister Crowley both used the horn to symbolise passage through death to eternal life, although Crowley might have been referring to “the little death”…
Unicorns were also believed to eat human flesh; that’s an eldritch horror right there.
There’s also an anime where it’s angles designing animals. They have an episode where they try and make a unicorn, because the horse was a big deal for them and they want to improve it. But it just doesn’t work
From an article I read last week. "According to KIRO7, an elk with an antler sticking out straight from its forehead was discovered on a trail cam in Tampico, Washington. Kyle Garrison, a representative with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, told the outlet that the antler is an uncommon abnormality, and a naturally occurring phenomenon."
Some say the Unicron was a mistaken description of a Rhino. A European sailor went to Africa told somebody he met at an Alehouse about it. He would have described it as a " Horse with a hron " and the legend was born
Since many older depictions of unicorns show artiodactyls, and often ones looking like some kind of goat, that would be the way to get them. Take for example a markhor and tweak its genes only a little bit to make them grow their screwed horns into one another. Then make it a bit bigger, so you could theoretically ride it. Done - a Mountain Unicorn (but probably only males would be really impressive). Alternatively you could try e.g. a Kobus for a Savannah Unicorn.😁
Rhinos being shrunk down and made into skinny unicorns, is like Dugongs being shrunk down and made into skinny mermaids
Having a unicorn? I've read enough stories on the weird part of the internet to know that that never doesn't end with the phrase "Gooey" involved.
Yes, I am entertained, thank you! 😄
This is a pretty solid video
I knew from the get-go where this was going. But cool video anyway.
Presenting the Boston Dynamics Electric Unicorn! A man can dream!
So you could say the deer in Italy was The Last Unicorn.
The title of this video shattered my entire existence.
I thought for sure the papilloma virus was gonna be mentioned, it's the reason why Jackalopes "exists", a horse with a weird keratin growth on it's head would just explain so much.
Good job on this one. I did notice, like in a lot of these, that you mentioned the goats, but down played it quite a lot. We had goats, and knew a lot of people with goats, and yes, we owned two unicorns. They were actually called unicorns. You don't see them that much, because goats get debudded usually. And when it happens, it's an injury very early on in life. It isn't that they were born with just one horn. It's that they bump their heads just right, and one or both horns are damaged, and they tend to grow around each other. It's really not that uncommon. Almost certainly a vet will remove those deformed horns. They tend to start poking into the neck or back of the head. THAT'S why you don't see unicorns. The horns don't grow straight! The reason why in apparently the 20th century they decided they needed to be horses is completely different. And yep. Deer do it to sometimes. Probably other animals do too.
Now the first part is where I thought we might have a problem, where it had to be a horse. None of you putting out interesting little videos on unicorns seem to have had much of a look at Greek literature. Did you know who the first unicorn was? Peter Beagle knew. She was a goat named Amalthea! Zeus, as a baby, broke one of her horns off. None of us can prove the next thought, of course. Who knows what ancient Greeks were thinking. But we figured, when I was a teenager, that people sometimes did see these goats and deer with these types of deformities and made up a little story. Something like "Oh! That goat only has one horn. Well, maybe that was, umm.... the goat some hero nursed form as an infant. Maybe a god. Zeus fits the narrative. So, say, he accidentally busted her horn off. Yep. Makes sense. That must be how that happens.
So see? It isn't so uncommon, and it's real. Just it's not anywhere as much fun as what the myth somehow evolved into over the centuries. We just can't see it, because a talking horse with a sparkly mane and one nice, straight horn is so much more common. Who wants to get a sparkly tee shirt, or lunch box, or very expensive tapestry with the picture of a goat with a broken horn poking into his or her neck?
But again, you came SO close! I'm really impressed. You just didn't look far enough into the obscure daily operations of dairy goat farming. Some day, I'll talk someone into talking about it.
“They’re like having an oatmeal raisin cookie when you really want chocolate chip.”
Unexpectedly delightful and far more satisfying?
"Eat your oatmeal raisin cookies!" killed me lol
If you Boane wash out all the cells and carve it into shape, could you then colonize it with horse stem cells and surgically implant the horn like dentists do with artificial teeth but with a bypass to supply the bone with blood? The peg would need to be titanium for bio compatibility.
It's funny that we don't have horses with horns but have horses with 6-8 feet long neck😅
There’s a manga called Heaven’s Design Team that really incredibly covers why fictional animal designs wouldn’t work biologically, and why real animals can have such strange features and still survive. Highly recommend for anyone who enjoys this sort of content.
For what I can gather it's not clear how many times headgear ornamentation evolved within Pecora. Especially antlers seems to be quite distinctive as in they follow a different developmental pathway. One, of few possible, hypothesis contends that deer-ancestor lost their ancestral pecoran headgear and evolved a new one.
If you look at the fossil record there are at least a couple of examples of independent evolution of bony headgears within the "horse-adjecent" clade (Euungulata?) considered in this video: Brontotheres, early diverging perissodactyls, and Protoceratids which might be camel.relatives.
Hey. This is totally unrelated. But where can I find that Flamingo shirt? The video was really informative, but I am really stuck on how great that shirt is.
one: you forgot the rainbow tail in your description and two: you need to see Unicorn Store
Tbh, considering how fast and strong horses are as they are, and where they live, I don't think they would be in particular need of a horn. It would be cool to see, sure, but, hey, apparently it wasn't necessary for them to be badasses that we couldn't resist getting into our lives.
Fast and strong, but also rather fragile at the same time.
A guy surgically alters goat's horn buds, so they grow a single central horn. He has a whole herd of unicorn goats. They're perfectly healthy and happy and none the wiser that they're surgically altered
And what a sick thing to do to a living creature just to create something that's not real. That's disgusting
@@LKMNOP Considering they're not in pain, it seems somewhat more humane than the agony that brachycephalic dog breeds go through for far more superficial and selfish purposes
@@LKMNOPI mean it’s no worse than people lopping off dog tails and stuff, or breeding dogs to be the way they are. It’s dumb but overall completely harmless in comparison
The one I saw wasn't surgically altered, he had an attachment that he slightly rotates several times a day. I thought about it for a buck we had, but we couldn't be home enough between work and school. Now I'm trying to remember who sold them?
"Well, actually" I have read that the one-horned altered goats have an advantage over other goats and tend to bully them. So WE may be doing it for looks & feels, but the goats themselves are arguably better off.
I knew the rhinos were coming. But the horn should be above the eyes, in the forehead.
Still it's good to know that SciShow is asking the important questions!
;-)
Mmmm, chocolate chips! I didn't hear anything after that...
Some years ago they produced hybrids between a Russian sturgeon and an American paddlefish, two clades whose last comon ancestor lived 180 million years ago, so we could make some horse-rhino hybrids and see what happens. After all, they only split 50 million years ago!
This question has nothing to do directly with unicorns, but as I’ve been binge-watching SciShow, I am struck with one undeniable fact: I wish I knew a lot more about science. What are some good resources-books, magazines, websites-for learning about science, nature, and technology?
0:13 *laughs in Kyle Hill* 😉👍