Mind you, I love the concept of Rowlett’s Owlet described in “Kingbird Highway”; an invisible owl with a silent ventriloquial call, so when you think it is not calling from near here, it is actually not calling from over there!
I think most Zoo Chatters know what one of these is without Google Unicorn, now that's crazy. Today I heard about a very old description of a 'Unicorn'. It's not at all clear, but....(open your mind a little).... It was described as "A one horned beast, the horn coming from the end of its nose (not head), it was also stocky in build." (any ideas?) Bear in mind there are no books or anything for reference, you have heard of a Unicorn from stories and pictures and then you see a horned beast for a few seconds maybe, what does your mind tell you...? Also, slightly off topic, but on the crazy name theme, is the beast ancient beast known as Cyclops, a giant of a 'creature/man' The ancient Greeks found bones of ancient dwarf elephant skeletons and thought them to be the skulls of the legendary Cyclops due to the large central round naval cavity in the skull. If you have not seen it before, your mind can really twist it up.
I don't know where I readed it, but there was a very solid and complex argumentation demonstrating that almost sure the legend of the unicorn comes from a breed of domestic goats that have the horns artificially fused. Until then, I was also sure that the true unicorn was the Indian rhinoceros but... it seems that it was not true. The part about Cyclops and dwarf elephants is correct tough.
Just a second ago, looking through the endangered mammal species list, I found one with a funny name: the Nonsense rat.
I don't believe miller provided an reason why. @Dr Bright N04 to challenge you, (other people know this), what's a baked bean?
That's interesting about the goats, I'll have a search. It could be any rhino, you see a horn on the end of a 4 legged animal, tell someone, they tell someone else 'Chinese Whispers' occur and you can easily end up with what we picture as a unicorn. PS - if it was a rhino originally the odd toed ungulate bit stayed correct.
I mean it's technically not an animal (rather a plant), but I was rewatching some old "Sam O'Nella Academy" videos and remembered my favorite parasitic plant species. Broomrape
