Fake Unicorns and Real Unicows (with pictures):

I am defining a "real" unicorn as any animal with a horn on its forehead and a resemblance to the mythical unicorn. It is a real animal in that it exists, but also referred to as a "false unicorn" because it is not the actually mythological creature. The examples presented below fall into four general categories.

1) Freak: An animal's horn or antler position may vary due to congenital defect or a trauma that relocates a horn bud to the central position where it heals and eventually attaches to the skull. This class of unicorn are often deer, photographed in the wild.

2) Construct: Most constructs are assemblages of dead animal parts. They differ from 'hoaxes' in not being presented as real--but made as works of art or craft. Live constructs are created when an animals horns are surgically relocated to the center of the forehead. The most common method being to relocate both horn buds so that they grow together in a single large horn. Constructs are most often goats, and sometimes cows,

3) Hoax: A physical hoax is when the bones or other parts of other animals may be combined with horns to create the appearance of a unicorn mummy or skeleton. There are also digital hoaxed made using Photoshopped pictures and faked videos.

4) Humanicorns: Humans with a grown on the skin the protrudes to give a horn-like appearance. A similar syndrome can occur in other animals such as mice.

If you came here with the question of whether the legendary unicorn does exist, my opinion is that they do not and never have--but this has not stopped people from trying to find or create them.

In 2008 Damien Hirst created pickled pony unicorn entitled The Dream. He also created a piece called The Broken Dreamwhich is a sawed off unicorn's head. And he also created a decayed unicorn head called Grotesque Unicorn.

Also in 2008 Borre Saethre created an art installation in New York that centered on a realistic unicorn in a glass-fronted room.

Sarina Brewer, a creative taxidermist has also created a unicorn.

Other taxidermy unicorns ave been made by GravityKills (2008) and horse unicorn (2009).

This recent unicorn sighting video is most likely a digital fake. The original creator and location is unknown.

The Ontario Science Centre also produced a 'real' unicorn video as part of their promotion of an exhibit on mythical creatures in 2010.

The Prato Unicorn

In 2008 the deer shown below was observed in an Italian research park. This roe deer has a normally horned twin. Although unicorns generally occur by injury or deliberate transplant, it was speculated that this deer-corn was produced by a congenital defect. (See also: Unicorn Deer). Some speculated that the Prato unicorn proved that unicorns had a basis in fact. Here are some pictures from 2011 that seem to be of the same animal.

A similar deer is pictured (as a taxidermy specimen) here (2009).

Other less symmetrical one-horned deer have also been spotted (e.g. 2006)--a fate than cab also occur to other species such as impala.

Photographed in 2007 near Elma, New York, this deer (shown right) has a normal pair of antlers as well as a straight, central horn. However the perspective on this photograph may be deceptive, and the "horn" may just be an assymetrical side spur of a normal antler.

The New Jersy unicorn is a "honest hoax" photo from the same year.

Pictures of this small mummy can be found at various locations on the internet. I have not determined their source of even whether this is a hoax or just an art project (2007)

See also:

• The Mummy
• Mummified Baby Unicorn Discovered

The California Unicorns

Otter G'Zell/Zell-Ravnheart created a series of unicorn goats, one of which (Lancelot) was exhibited in 1985 Ringling Circus. "The Living Unicorn" entranced and disillusioned a generation of children visitng "the Greatest Show on Earth". Pictured is a later unicorn from the same source called Oberan (photographed in 2004). Oberon seems to have been produced by the same method as the 1936 Maine unicorn. I have given this entry a date of 1984 based on the filing date of a United States patent on producing this kind of unicorn. (See videos here.)

There is also this rather less symmetrical unigoat, probably an accidental occurence. Also:

• Unicorn goat (2006)
• Goat (2009)
• Taxidermy (2009)
• Merged horns (2011)

1936 Maine Unicorn

This uni-cow was produced deliberately by transplanting both horn buds to the forehead so that they grow and combine into a single large horn.

See also:

• Dr. Dove’s Unicorn Bull

2006 Eastern States Expo exhibit

This photo suggests that another unicorn cow was on exhibit in 2006. (Oher pictures of this and another three-horned cow here).

2010 Unicow

A naturally occuring "unicow" with two normal horns and one unicorn-like horn has been reported in China.

1931 Ripley Exhibit

Perhaps the best know human with a cutaneous horn was a Chinese farmer known as Wang. He was documented for Ripley's Believe or Not and a wax likeness can still be seen today. [For more information see The Human Marvels]

Other example include:

• 93-year-old Ma Zhong Nan of China (2007)

These cutanous horns can occur on any place on the body, but are more common one areas exposed to the sun such as the finger or ear.

They also occur in other species, such as mice

1663 Otto Von Guericke's Unicorn

Otto Von Guericke assembled prehistoric bones from the so-called "Unicorn Cave" in Germany. into a putative unicorn. It was subsequently shown to be a hoax chimera asembled from the bones of the rhinoceros, mammoth and narwhal.

See also: unicorn skull (2011)

• Dove, F. The physiology of horn growth: A study of the morphogenesis, the interaction of tissues, and the evolutionary processes of a mendelian recessive character by means of transplantation of tissues (1935) Journal of Experimental Zoology, 69 [abstract]
• Dove, F. Artificial production of the fabulous unicorn (1936) Scientific Monthly, 42, 431-436.
• Probst E. (2010). Unicorn mouse: cornu cutaneum in a mouse with dual malignancies.
• Thone, F. (1936). Unicorn no longer fabulous; biologist Has produced one. The Science News-Letter, 29, 312-313.