Rare Asian Unicorn captured

[Kane52630]

Rare Asian Unicorn captured

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/09/17/rare-asian-unicorn-captured/

Scientists have confirmed the first sighting in more than a decade of one of the world’s rarest animals - the saola, sometimes called Asia’s “unicorn.”

The animal was captured by villagers in Laos in August, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. The villagers took the saola back to their village in Bolikhamxay province and Laotian conservation authorities sent a team to check on the animal. The creature, likely weakened from its time in captivity, died shortly after that team arrived.

"The death of this Saola is unfortunate,” the Provincial Conservation Unit of Bolikhamxay province said in the IUCN statement. “But at least it confirms an area where it still occurs and the government will immediately move to strengthen conservation efforts there."

This was the first confirmed sighting of a saola since 1999, when remotely triggered cameras took images of one in Laos.

First discovered in 1992, the saola is considered critically endangered, its numbers so few that biologists have never witnessed one in the wild. Fewer than a few hundred saolas are believed to roam the Annamite Mountains of Laos and Vietnam. There are none in captivity.

The rarity of the saola, which resembles an African antelope but it more closely related genetically to wild cattle, gives it mythical status in some circles, according to the IUCN. The saola, although it has two horns, may be the basis of the mythical Chinese unicorn, the qilin, although it is unknown if saolas ever existed in China.

The carcass of the saola recovered in the Laotian village was being preserved for study, officials said.

"Study of the carcass can yield some good from this unfortunate incident. Our lack of knowledge of Saola biology is a major constraint to efforts to conserve it,” says Dr. Pierre Comizzoli, a veterinarian with the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and a member of the IUCN Saola Working Group. “This can be a major step forward in understanding this remarkable and mysterious species.”

 

[Manic]

Don't unicorns typically have only one horn? Hence, uni?

 

[AnorexicBatman]

What a ripoff!

 

[Kane52630]

Don't unicorns typically have only one horn? Hence, uni?

Quiet You!

its a double unicorn all the way across the sky!

 

[Metamorpho1977]

Asians are supposed to be good at math. Uni means 1. There are 2 horns on the head of that animal.

 

[AnorexicBatman]

Someday they will find a REAL unicorn and name it something else.
Zoologists are weird like that. Like, the Sea-Cow (Dugong) or Sea-Horse or Sea-Lion
How uncreative and they have nothing to do with their land counterparts

 

[THE MR. TERRIFIC]

That just looks like a goat with TWO horns.

 

[Schlosser85]

The animal was captured by villagers in Laos in August, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. The villagers took the saola back to their village in Bolikhamxay province and Laotian conservation authorities sent a team to check on the animal. The creature, likely weakened from its time in captivity, died shortly after that team arrived.

And we've already managed to kill it

 

[Ghostvirus]

Quiet You!

its a double unicorn all the way across the sky!

What does it mean!

And we've already managed to kill it

Yay humanity!!!!

 

[Nathan]

If it lives, we can kill it.

 

[Marx]

Unicorns only have one horn...I feel ripped off.

 

[Shemtov]

It's probably called a unicorn because from the side it looks like it has one horn.....much like the Oryx (which may have inspired the western Unicorn legend).
here's a link to a picture of an Oryx from the side:
http://www.liv.ac.uk/~sdb/Safari-2001/Images/427%20Oryx.jpg
Doesn't sort of look lik it has one horn?

 

[Colossal Spoons]

Unicron?

brb, alerting TFs

 

[AndThePickles]

Disappointment is the word

 

[BillPardy]

A unicorn with dual horns... Dualcorn?..

 

[SuperFerret]

Bicorn

 

[Alex The Great]

We just need to get Rhinos and Horses to mate. Then we'll have a unicorn

 

[BillPardy]

We just need to get Rhinos and Horses to mate. Then we'll have a unicorn

Or just a bunch of horses with stretched vagina's...

 

[theberserker]

Don't unicorns typically have only one horn? Hence, uni?

Uniicorn

 

[Figs]

If it lives, we can kill it.

Seriously though, that's pretty ****** they find a rare animal like that and then it dies...

 

[Manic]

Bicorn

Bi-cornious?

 

[jaymes_e06]

UMM... Uni= 1 bi= 2 Tri= 3 so on and so forth so... yeah.

 

[Carcharodon]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's why the article puts "unicorn" in quotation marks. I think it's a comment on the rarity of the species. If anything, the lack of quotation marks in the title of this thread is more misleading than the article itself. The article makes the nature of its comparison quite clear. At least, I thought so.

 

[jaymes_e06]

^Well I cant speak for everyone but I was referring to the title not the artcle an it was more jokingly yhan anything.

 

[Carcharodon]

^Well I cant speak for everyone but I was referring to the title not the artcle an it was more jokingly yhan anything.

Well, that post wasn't specifically targeted at you, nor at anyone else in particular, really.