The
Hercynian unicorn if indeed a uni-stag (© Markus Bühler)
Germany has long been
associated with unicorn traditions, in particular with the supposed occurrence
of dainty white unicorns in the Harz Mountains. In addition, a
far more exotic, bizarre version was allegedly sighted in Germany's Hercynian Forest by no less
eminent an eyewitness than Julius Caesar.
He described it
as being an ox but shaped like a stag, the centre of whose brow, between its
ears, bore a single horn, taller and straighter than normal horns. Moreover,
later eyewitnesses claimed that a series of branches sprouted forth from the
tip of this creature's horn.
Bust
of Julius Caesar in the National Archaeological Museum, Naples
(public domain)
Long forgotten,
the case of this very curious, atypical unicorn has lately been re-examined by
German cryptozoologist Markus Bühler, who has proposed a very ingenious,
plausible explanation for it.
Occasionally, a
freak deer is born, bearing a single horn-like structure upon the centre of its
skull, instead of its species' normal paired laterally-sited antlers. One
recently-recorded example, pictured above, is a roe
deer Capreolus capreolus 'uni-stag' aptly dubbed 'Unicorn' and born during
2007 in a park belonging to the Center of
Natural Sciences in Prato,
near Florence, Italy.
Unicorn,
the uni-stag roe deer (© Center of Natural Sciences, Prata,
Italy)
But what if, as
speculated by Markus, some rudimentary antlers develop at the tip of this
aberrant central horn?
The result would
be a creature bearing a very similar appearance to the extraordinary Hercynian
unicorn. So perhaps the latter beast, if truly real, was not a unicorn at all,
but merely a freak uni-stag!
This ShukerNature post is
excerpted from my book Mirabilis: A Carnival ofCryptozoology and Unnatural History (Anomalist Books: New York, 2013)
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