When Myth Meets Reality: Fabled Beasts And Real-Life Creatures

Plants and Animals





Photo credit:

Less unicorn, more hairy rhino. DiBgd/Wikimedia, CC BY-SA

Fantastic creatures have fascinated humans for thousands of years. When a new skeleton of the extinct horned mammal Elasmotherium sibiricum was discovered recently, its common name –the “Siberian Unicorn” – quickly resurfaced. But this “unicorn” was very different to the creature of Western mythology.