I think they existed. The terms actually means one horn but i mean like the horse kind and other strage kinds.

Erm...I really don't know. Perhaps. o-o;

I doubt actual unicorns, portrayed as one-horned horses, actually existed.

The origins of the idea of unicorns most likely came from the portrayals by early men of the now-extinct ancestor of modern day cattle, in turn exaggerated like almost all traveling tales.

Oddly, The unicorn does not appear in early Greek mythology, but in Greek natural history, Greek writers on natural history were convinced of the reality of the unicorn, which they located in India, a distant and fabulous land to them.

The Encyclopaedia Britannica collects classical references to unicorns: the earliest description is from Ctesias, who described in India white wild asses, fleet of foot, having on the forehead a horn a cubit and a half in length, colored white, red and black; from the horn were made drinking cups which were a preventive of poisoning.

Aristotle must be following Ctesias when he mentions two one-horned animals, the oryx, a kind of antelope, and the so-called "Indian ass" (in Historia anim. ii. I and De part. anim. iii. 2).

In Roman times Pliny the Elder's Natural History (viii: 30 and xl: 106) mentions the oryx and an Indian ox (the rhinoceros, perhaps) as one-horned beasts, as well as the Indian ass, "a very ferocious beast, similar in the rest of its body to a horse, with the head of a deer, the feet of an elephant, the tail of a boar, a deep, bellowing voice, and a single black horn, two cubits in length, standing out in the middle of its forehead." Pliny adds that "it cannot be taken alive."

Aelian (De natura. anim. iii. 41; iv. 52), quoting Ctesias, adds that India produces also a one-horned horse, and says (xvi. 20) that the "monoceros" was sometimes called carcazonon, which may be a form of the Arabic "carcadn", meaning "rhinoceros".

Strabo (book xv) says that in India there were one-horned horses with stag-like heads.

other cultures had horned animal 'myths' as well...

Unicorn

Yea i also am convinced they existed at one time.

What would you call a unicorm with wings?

Unicorns of legends did not have wings.You might be thinking of pegasus.

I know pegasi and unicorns are separate creatures. I was just curious about a hybrid.


It would be a magnificent creature, wouldn't it???

If all that makes a uicorn is a white horse with a horn I'd say its the most likely crypto to exist. But a pegasus would have to have huge wings. The 2 seem connnected somehow though...

I believe that at a genetic mutation is a possibility, could have produced one or two of them...however, lacking and 'magical' abilities that were know in the mythos...

In our time, we have seen, sheep and goats that have but 1 horn, or the 2 growing together, which could also account for sightings...

As far as the Pegasus mythos, I believe that once again a mutation or merged twin would account for the viewing of wings... Same as the 'cat with wings' which there are actual pictures of...

I think you may find a animal that could be close as Jay said, But if you mean the one's who have a magic horn.. Then i think you way off dear..

HORES HAD HORNS true fact there are scientists who are studing a fossils in the tightest security i dont have a clue why thought

I suppose you mean HORSES, rather than HORES.

In my experience, HORES rarely have horns, though they're often...umm..horny.


And yes, the wings on a real flesh-and-blood pegasus would be huge, indeed. To lift a 1,000-lb animal, they'd need a wingspan like a modern commercial plane.

yeah horses is what i meant and if im correct its spelled whores

Ive always heard of them closely associated with water and that they (the legend) were inspired by narwhals.

they probaly existed at some uncertin time and in some uncertin form, has anyone wondered if unicorns were actually a spirit of some form

A pegahorn of course!

I always thought that the middle eastern, african and Indian unicorns were inspired by the rhinoceros.

eh.. I dunno... there really is no traces of such things... I'll probably end up reseaching it now... but if they did or do exist they're probably very beautiful

"Marco Polo's description of them as being "scarcely smaller than elephants" and "ugly brutes" who "prefer to wallow in mud and slime" makes them sound very similar to a rhinocerous." He wrote about the in his journals of his travels.

Also, they were supposed to have been inspired by washed up narwhal tusks/horns. Narwhal horn was often sold as unicorn horn to those who thought it medicinal and magical.

A unicorn is not a white horse with a horn - it has cloven hooves, a 'lion's' tail and a goat-like beard. As such, it could well be based on a genuine animal, possible some form of antelope.

Personally I think it originated with something like this:-



And then became exagerrated over time, as travellers tales often are. And perhaps confused also with the rhino.

Unicorns did indeed exist. Royality in various times during history would be precented them from live stock breeders and horsemen as symbols of that breeders proficency in the area of animal husbandtry and suitiblity for royal apointment. These expert breeders of livestock would breed goats for size and colour. When a kid was born that had a suitible purity of whiteness to its coat, the kid's proto-horn buds were fused in a secret process. The end result was a true unicorn. The skulls of caprine (goat-like) Unicorns are not really all that unusual of a find in collections, however the horns themselves were in most cases removed and ground for use in alchemy or ritual.

This secret process of proto-horn bud fusion was rediscovered from various texts by a folklorist and pagan searcher named Zell Ravenheart in 1976. The resulting Unicorn was named Lancelot and was the first caprine unicorn to be created in more than 400 years. He traveled the world and became quite famous at the time.

While it is true that they don't seem to currently accure naturally in nature, Unicorns did, however, exist in this form and served as symbols of royality, purity and divinity throughout various times in history.

The question of where the iconic image of the origional unicorn, which these livestock breeders were recreating, came from in the first place is another question altogether.

Hope this helps

DrWhomo

As an aside: I wouldn't be at all surprised if we didn't see Unicorns reapear in the not so distant future, what with all the work being done in genetics these days. Frankly, I'm surprized it already hasn't happened, what with genetically altered glow-in-the-dark fish availible at pet shops, and mice with phosphorescent squid DNA being common-place in reasearch labs, a Unicorn seems down right hum drum in comparison.

What? A cat with wings? A photo of the same? Where?

not to throw in a curve ball but my father was a very religious man. He once told me that the bible spoke of unicorns. But god removed the horns because they were to dangerous. I think that it maybe in the old testament. I am not sure. I looked for it but couldn't find it. Maybe someone else could.

Quite a lot of people refer to such a creature as an Alicorn, but that is in fact the name of a Unicorn's horn. In my opinion a suitable name is Cerapter, cera meaning horn and pter meaning wing, simple as that.

As if horses couldn't hurt you enough, let's throw a horn on its head.

I really do think they existed though. Just because its not THAT far fetched. It's a horn sticking out of its head. Lots of horses have weirdly shaped heads already.

I thought that the Bible mentions something like the unicorns either refused to go onto Noah's Ark or that Noah banished them and they all drowned, swam away somewhere, or evolved into the narwhal.

And here comes I, the newbie with a theory. My theory about unicorns, is that the only reason their bones haven't been found is because their horns would have been made out of the same material as hair, like a rhino's horn, so the horns would have deteriorated, therefore the skeletons would be mistaken for Zebra skeletons most likely, as Zebras are the only horses I know of with lion-like tails. Huzzah.

~Siaarn

The earliest greco-Roman accounts were clearly referring to rhinos, this is beyond dispute. This fact was "forgotten" in the Middle ages however, but the name stuck. Perhaps someone fused a horn to a real horse or goat in Medieval times to create their idealized notion of a unicorn, but clearly the name saw it origins in Rhinos and medieval man took the name and made their own unicorns, most often a white horse with a narwhale horn in its forehead.

Here is a website I found about the myth and legends of unicorns.
http://www.unicorncollector.com/legends.htm

probably a rhino/unicorn breeding!!!

messy

Ever heard that story when Noah was gathering 2 of every species and the unicorn would not get on the ark. According to the story, that is why there is no unicorns.

I suspect that unicorn legeneds came of people finding narwhal tusks or seeing narwhals in the ocean; In those less educated days tall tales ran rampant, and bones can be drastically misinterpreted. Fossilized ammonites were suspected to be coiled up snakes whose heads had been cut off by St. Patrick; There were many interpretations of sharks teeth; Even in more recent days the Iguanadon's first suggested body shape was found to be wrong. A traveller, walking along a beach in those days and finding a washed-up narwhal tusk, would have been quite impressed by it and would have invented an animal to accompany it. Perhaps an entire narwhal corpse was found and resembled a horse to somebody.