Why are there no unicorns?
By taiguy
@taiguy (478)
United States
May 25, 2007 12:46pm CST
Why are there no Unicorns? Perhaps horses develop in a way that cannot be easily modified to produce a Unicorn, so such creatures have ever arisen. Or maybe Unicorn-like animals have been born in the past but because there is no advantage for a horse to have a horn, such creatures did not thrive and were weeded out by natural selection.
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4 responses
@nicolec (2671)
• United States
25 May 07
Regardless of the magical ones, it is most likely your second thought. Natural selection is a finiky thing. i think they have found fossil records that indicate unicorn like creatures.
However, according to the Shell Silverstein poem there are no unicorns because they were too busy playing to get on Noah's Arc. Alas, they were whiped out with the great flood.
Take your pick on the explanations.
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@flowerchilde (12529)
• United States
25 May 07
Is that the song I was trying to think of?
As to natural selection, they've never come across a life form or positive fossil of a life form which was two kinds or part one kind of animal, part another kind.. lots of species within a kind.. like breeders can breed other breeds of dogs.. but no cats have been bred from dogs, etc.. Just a little trivia most people don't know..
Also as to natural selection I don't see how a horn could be bad for their survival..? A unicorn would also most likely be be the same "kind" as a horse, zebra, etc..
Now if they thought of a unicorn as having evolved from the dog/coyote kind, it would be hard to survive during the transition when it is not an efficient carnivorous wolf kind anymore, nor an efficient (as to survival) unicorn. So.. I'm goin' for the song/poem.. and they perished along with Neanderthal man (Cain's kids).
Or perhaps they are just shy creatures.. and if we could catch one, all our dreams would come true..
@nicolec (2671)
• United States
25 May 07
I never claimed they came across any fossils that suggest a breed of two kinds of animals. What I DID say is that they have come across fossils of animals which may have looked like a unicorn.
For example:
"One suggestion is that the unicorn is based on an extinct animal sometimes called the "Giant Unicorn" but known to scientists as Elasmotherium, a huge Eurasian rhinoceros native to the steppes, south of the range of the woolly rhinoceros of Ice Age Europe. Elasmotherium looked little like a horse, but it had a large single horn in its forehead. It seems to have become extinct about the same time as the rest of the glacial age megafauna."
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@Tetchie (2932)
• Australia
27 May 07
I'm hoping that Unicorns do exist in the world to come. Or it is the world we fell from. Remember that place that's called Eden in the bible, or paradise, or Fields of Peace. That's where humans lived before we fell from grace. Hopefully one day we'll return to that state of being and that is where the unicorns live. Maybe I'm nuts, or maybe it is just something to hope for. It would be nice though don't you think.
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