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Unicorns

[Unicorns Were Real, But Climate Change Killed Them

3aac9524abb6d38fd758cd2adc8f99ff

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Unicorns, they’re just like us: uglier than previously believed land-dwellers who, despite being both literally and figuratively big-headed, are powerless under the crushing forces of climate change.
In fact, according to new research published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution, early humans lived alongside 9,000-pound Siberian unicorns, which bear no resemblance to any elegant, rainbow-colored depiction of the mythical creatures we’ve imagined. While scientists have known of these unicorns’ existence for decades, they previously believed that the beasts went extinct around 200,000 years ago. After analyzing unicorn DNA for the first time, scientists have come to realize they were way off; Elasmotherium sibiricum were roaming Eastern Europe and Central Asia until at least 39,000 years ago, meaning they coexisted with humans.........."

See whole article here:
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/unicorns-were-real-climate-change-163246398.html
 
I listened to a podcast about unicorns and did a bit of follow-up research. The ancient Greek writer Ctesias mentions a unicorn-like animal called the 'Indian Ass'. Imagine my surprise when I googled it...

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[Unicorns Were Real, But Climate Change Killed Them

3aac9524abb6d38fd758cd2adc8f99ff

"
""

Unicorns, they’re just like us: uglier than previously believed land-dwellers who, despite being both literally and figuratively big-headed, are powerless under the crushing forces of climate change.
In fact, according to new research published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution, early humans lived alongside 9,000-pound Siberian unicorns, which bear no resemblance to any elegant, rainbow-colored depiction of the mythical creatures we’ve imagined. While scientists have known of these unicorns’ existence for decades, they previously believed that the beasts went extinct around 200,000 years ago. After analyzing unicorn DNA for the first time, scientists have come to realize they were way off; Elasmotherium sibiricum were roaming Eastern Europe and Central Asia until at least 39,000 years ago, meaning they coexisted with humans.........."

See whole article here:
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/unicorns-were-real-climate-change-163246398.html
 
There was a thread on "Cryptozoology: General" a few years ago, titled "Monsters We Missed" (first post 10 / 6 / 2010) -- I'd do a link to it, but my computer skills don't stretch that far ! It included discussion about the creature referred to above, "Elasmotherium". Over and above the reckoning thus cited, that it was around 39,000-odd years ago, thus coexisting with humans: there is one tantalising account which has come down to us from about a thousand years ago, telling of something seeming anyway a lot like "Elasmotherium", reputedly alive and dwelling in the lower / middle Volga area in the 10th century AD. The account is by an Arab traveller based in Baghdad, but far away from home: admittedly he didn't see an Elasmo -- he was going by what locals told him, implying that the creature was then alive and well in that area (and dangerous -- killable, but having to be treated very warily). They showed him artefacts supposedly made from the creature's horn. Further details about this 10th-century data, in the abovementioned thread.
 
The Wiki page includes this depiction of what appears to be Elasmotherium in the Rouffignac cave in France. Dated to around 13,000 BC, this suggests that Elasmo survived till more recent times than its official extinction date:

PSX_20181221_124030.jpg
 
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I listened to a podcast about unicorns and did a bit of follow-up research. The ancient Greek writer Ctesias mentions a unicorn-like animal called the 'Indian Ass'. Imagine my surprise when I googled it... ...

Ctesias is credited as the first known Western writer to mention unicorns (ca. 4th century BCE). The allusion to "Asian wild asses" derived from tales originating much earlier in India.
Where did the unicorn myth come from?

... Unicorn-like imagery dates back to the Indus Valley Civilization (about 3300 B.C. to 1300 B.C.) in South Asia, which included parts of modern-day Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. A side profile of what looks like a horse with a single horn appears on seals from that period. However, these images were likely depictions of aurochs (Bos primigenius), a now-extinct wild ox, according to the St Neots Museum (opens in new tab) in England.

Written Chinese descriptions of an Asian unicorn date as far back as around 2700 B.C., according to the American Museum of Natural History (opens in new tab) in New York. This "unicorn" seemed to be a combination of different animals and had the body of a deer, the tail of an ox, a multicolored or scaly dragon-like coat and a flesh-covered horn (or horns). Despite physical differences, Asian unicorns were described as evasive and solitary creatures, just as they were in later European records. ...
FULL STORY: https://www.livescience.com/origins-of-unicorns
 
[Unicorns Were Real, But Climate Change Killed Them

3aac9524abb6d38fd758cd2adc8f99ff

"
""

Unicorns, they’re just like us: uglier than previously believed land-dwellers who, despite being both literally and figuratively big-headed, are powerless under the crushing forces of climate change.
In fact, according to new research published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution, early humans lived alongside 9,000-pound Siberian unicorns, which bear no resemblance to any elegant, rainbow-colored depiction of the mythical creatures we’ve imagined. While scientists have known of these unicorns’ existence for decades, they previously believed that the beasts went extinct around 200,000 years ago. After analyzing unicorn DNA for the first time, scientists have come to realize they were way off; Elasmotherium sibiricum were roaming Eastern Europe and Central Asia until at least 39,000 years ago, meaning they coexisted with humans.........."

See whole article here:
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/unicorns-were-real-climate-change-163246398.html

Elasmotherium was an extinct rhino, not vastly different in appearance to the one-horned rhino today (except for horn size):

rhino.png


Rhinos strike me as very different to the traditionally more gracile and equine form of unicorn.
I'm not convinced that an ancestral memory of encountering Elasmotherium can account for unicorn legends.
 
Rhinos strike me as very different to the traditionally more gracile and equine form of unicorn.
I'm not convinced that an ancestral memory of encountering Elasmotherium can account for unicorn legends.

Why ?

It's the same issues with countless mythological creatures. If they had an inspiration in some extinct species, the memory of these species could have survived through basic descriptions told "from father to son" around the camp fire, like : "your great grandfather Torgul-Nafti once hunted a beast with four powerful feet and one horn". Sadly the great grandfather passed away, so his grandson had no way to fathom what the beast really looked like. Therefore, his imagination would fill-in the gaps, and he would pass-on his misconceptions to his own sons. And so on and so forth until their Chinese descendant, Huang Xiaohan, visualizes the "unicorn" as a four feeted reptile with a scaly body while his French descendant from Orleans (through the Alan steppe peoples, who never saw any rhino, but lived among horses), Alain Dupont, considers the unicorn as a graceful white horse.

Our current "knowledge" about the appearance of "dragons", "unicorns", "griffins" or whatever creature, has been shaped by centuries of evolution and imagination. They are simply not reliable enough to infer from their current state what they originally came from. So an Elasmotherium could do it. Or even a "standard" rhinoceros.

We know from historical sources that rhinoceros were hunted in China during the Shang dynasty. They were known as a fierce creature, with one horn, and a very strong skin. Maybe that's why the Chinese unicorn ("Qilin") came to be seen as a scaly beast in this area of the world.

I have read somewhere that the elasmotherium may have survived in Siberia and central Asia until about 30 000 years ago (and perhaps some were still alive in France at a more recent date, if we are to interpret Rouffignac's cave paintings as elasmos rather than rhinos). This area later became the homeland of the steppe cultures who first domesticated the horse. The horse became central to these people's lives. And we know from scythian tombs that they sometimes put fancy headdresses on their horses. This could account for the evolution of the unicorn towards a more equine profile. Nobody there had directly seen a rhino, but "horned" horses were not an uncommon sight. So for these nomads, traditional descriptions of unicorns would naturally evolved toward a horselike figure. They could have spread this belief when they migrated toward Europe during the "barbarian invasions".

We will probably never know.

By the way, does anybody know if there is an African unicorn myth predating our Western unicorn legends ? That is, did subsaharian people, who lived closeby to standard rhinoceros develop any mythical one horned creature ? Or were they content with what they saw next door ?
 
I have read somewhere that the elasmotherium may have survived in Siberia and central Asia until about 30 000 years ago (and perhaps some were still alive in France at a more recent date, if we are to interpret Rouffignac's cave paintings as elasmos rather than rhinos).

By the way, does anybody know if there is an African unicorn myth predating our Western unicorn legends ? That is, did subsaharian people, who lived closeby to standard rhinoceros develop any mythical one horned creature ? Or were they content with what they saw next door ?

Given the proportion of the horn, the cave art shown a few posts above, does certainly look very reminiscent of elasmotherium.

As for African cryptids, I was reminded of the report that when at least one expedition seeking the truth about Mokele M'Bembe - a large herbivore that some people believe to be a dwarf sauropod dinosaur, showed pictures of extant creatures to tribes who told stories about Mokele, they positively identified the creature as a rhino.

 
I'm sure I read years ago of a Greek or early Roman account of the monokeros (unicorn) that also claimed locals gave it a name which resembles the much later attested 'karkadann'. Karkadann seems to refer to both rhinoceros and a mythical, huge, fierce, one-horned beast that shares with the unicorn a horn that neutralises poison. Unfortunately, I can't recall where I read that, I might try to find it later.

Anyway, I'm perfectly comfortable with the unicorn being derived from rhinos through garbled accounts. I've never been very convinced that it began as a poorly seen antelope in profile making its two horns appear as one, as several people (including one cryptozoologist, who seemed a little committed to the idea) have tried to tell me is likely. Generally, such creatures are observed in groups. Were they conspiring to deceive a visiting human by all standing in profile to him? Also, they don't stay still. If you see something so unusual as an ungulate with a single long horn, surely you have a second look until it moves its head.
 
I'm sure I read years ago of a Greek or early Roman account of the monokeros (unicorn) that also claimed locals gave it a name which resembles the much later attested 'karkadann'. Karkadann seems to refer to both rhinoceros and a mythical, huge, fierce, one-horned beast that shares with the unicorn a horn that neutralises poison. Unfortunately, I can't recall where I read that, I might try to find it later.

Anyway, I'm perfectly comfortable with the unicorn being derived from rhinos through garbled accounts. I've never been very convinced that it began as a poorly seen antelope in profile making its two horns appear as one, as several people (including one cryptozoologist, who seemed a little committed to the idea) have tried to tell me is likely. Generally, such creatures are observed in groups. Were they conspiring to deceive a visiting human by all standing in profile to him? Also, they don't stay still. If you see something so unusual as an ungulate with a single long horn, surely you have a second look until it moves its head.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karkadann

maximus otter
 

Sadly, the myth of "a horn endowed with medicinal qualities" persists to this day in certain brands of quackery. Hence the poor old rhino being driven to the verge of extinction.
Now there's a thought; did Cro-Magnon tribes hunt the elasmotherium to extinction to claim its horn as a prize, which they regarded as magical?
 
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