June 12, 2008 | 1 comments

Unicorns Are for Real?

CLICK TO ENLARGE + AP Photo/Center of Natural Sciences

The Associated Press reports that a deer sporting a single, unicornlike horn has turned up in a nature preserve near Florence, Italy. The one-year-old roe deer was born in captivity in a park maintained by the Center of Natural Sciences in the Tuscan town of Prato. Researchers say the creature's single antler, which pokes up like a cowlick from the middle of its head, may be the result of a genetic anomaly—although its twin has two horns, the AP reports. (For those who need to be convinced of the photo's veracity, here are five ways to spot a doctored image.) Fulvio Fraticelli, scientific director of Rome's zoo, told the news service that the orientation of the horn could have resulted from physical trauma instead of genetics. Either way, researchers were quick to point out that specimens like this one may have spawned the legend of the unicorn, whose horn was thought to have aphrodisiac and healing properties.

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