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Anonymous
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Think this is the explanation behind the unicorn?
Ive heard a theory that it was based on the Rhino, but this seems plausable.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/features/29_08_02_a.htm
Ive heard a theory that it was based on the Rhino, but this seems plausable.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/features/29_08_02_a.htm
Unicorns _ in myth and fairy tales _ lived in enchanted forests, frolicking under giant trees. Although no such shining white creature ever inhabited the forests of ancient Europe, the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula were once populated by white antelopes that looked an awful lot like the unicorn.
The horns of the oryx antelope are so symmetrical that only one can be seen from the profile, one of the many inspirations of the unicorn myth.
Some tales of the unicorn tell that it was hunted to extinction. So was the oryx, almost. The last wild oryx was killed in 1972 in Oman. Only a few survived in zoos. Now, after decades of captive breeding, some oryx are free again. This year 10 of them were released into their native environment in Jordan’s Wadi Rum National Reserve.
Operation Oryx started in 1961. The World Wildlife Fund and the Flora and Fauna Preservation Society of London launched a rescue operation when only about 100 were still alive in the wild.
A world oryx herd was established at the Phoenix Zoo in Arizona, USA, with three animals from Oman, one from the London Zoo, one from Kuwait, and four from Saudi Arabia. These nine bred well _ by 1984 there were more than 200.
As the herd grew in number, Arab countries proposed that the antelope should be reintroduced into its native environment in the Arabian deserts. As early as 1978, 11 oryxes came to Jordan’s Shumari Wildlife Reserve. Now 63 oryxes live on this grassland 110 kilometers east of Amman. Visitors can watch them from an observation tower.
However, this area is not where the antelope originally lived. Therefore the Royal Society for the Conversation of Nature in Jordan moved 10 oryxes to the desert of Wadi Rum last April. With ancient pictures of the antelope carved into the sandstone walls of its massive gorges, it seems certain that the nature reserve south of Petra was once populated by oryx.
The animals currently live in a fenced area of 3 square kilometers.
“But no one interferes in their lives. The rangers only supply them with water and sometimes with alfalfa,” says Nashat Hamidan, an ecologist at the Royal Society for the Conversation of Nature (RSNC).
The RSNC plans to set the oryx completely free when certain that they are managing well in the enclosure. Currently they are exposed to most of the same risks as in the wild _ with wolves and hyenas roaming hungrily nearby. However, a calf named Ruba was born in May and is still doing well, Hamidan maintains.
But more risks may be awaiting the endangered species. In Oman 10 oryxes were reintroduced in the central desert in 1982. Up to 100 oryxes from enclosures joined them during the 80s. In 1996 their number had grown to 400 _ but in 1999 only 100 were left. Poachers began hunting the creatures as their number grew.
While in the past the oryx was hunted for its horns, hide and meat, now poachers have been capturing them for private zoos. Even more alarming, however, was that only 11 of the 100 left were females.
The poachers can catch them more easily, but they also die more frequently from stress or exhaustion when hunted.
When not being hunted, the oryx is a tough animal. It can live 22 days without water, and it is also said that the antelope can smell water over a distance of 150 kilometers.
However, whether the oryx really inspired the myth of the unicorn is impossible to tell.
The myth of the one-horned creature is wide-spread. The first known mention is from 2400 BC by the Chinese Emperor Fu Hsi. The unicorn he wrote about, however, had fish scales that shimmered in the colors of the rainbow.
In the Old Testament the unicorn is mentioned nine times. Yet the biblical references could be the result of a linguistic error made by scholars when they translated the Bible from Hebrew into Greek.
Nevertheless, the myth was eventually transformed into a Christian allegory. The legend became that the unicorn was so swift it could only be captured with the help of a maiden.
The maiden would sit in a forest and the unicorn, lured by her innocence and beauty, would place its head on her lap. This was a scene depicted in countless medieval paintings, sculptures and tapestries. In the so-called Holy Hunt, the maiden was seen representing the Virgin Mary, and the unicorn Christ.
Thus the myth fits well into Jordan’s tourist image. In recent years Jordan has been increasingly promoting its holy sites, like the settlement of John the Baptist on the River Jordan.
For those tourists it will hardly matter whether the oryx is really the original of a fabulous creature that was interpreted as an allegory of Christ. What counts is their beauty _ now on display in Wadi Rum.