A hunter in Slovenia made headlines across the globe when it was discovered one of his kills was a unicorn. At least it was sort of a unicorn.  

First reported by National Geographic, the hunter was on the lookout for roe deer, which are fairly common in Slovenia and Europe and have a regular annual hunting season. Taking down an aged buck, the hunter was amazed to find his quarry had a single horn sprouting from its forehead, rather than the usual two. 

Like Us on Facebook

Unlike the pearlescent, spiraling horn of legend however, the deer's horn looks something like a lumpy branch.

Scientist Bostjan Pokorny verified the animal's authenticity, and said in an e-mail that he has never seen anything like it in nature. 

"In this species, only males grow antlers, which are bilateral and usually symmetrical bone structures that appear from two antler pedicles, i.e. extensions of the skull," Pokorny, assistant director of the ecological research institute ERICo Velenje

"However, in the case of this very untypical and interesting buck, both pedicles, which should be separated, grew up together in one large pedicle." 

Pokorny postulated the extremely rare antler growth could have arisen from an injury, or perhaps a genetic deformity in the deer.

Often depicted as a creature halfway between a horse and a goat, the myth of the unicorn goes back at least to the Roman Empire. As Europe transitioned into the Dark Ages after the fall of Rome, the unicorn, as a personification of purity and virtue, became a common motif in art and ballads. Most famous of all was its horn, which was said to be able to cure any poison.

Single-horned creatures, however, were not restricted to Rome or even to Europe. Asian bards were well familiar with the qilin, which, like the unicorn, appeared to be an amalgamation of several other animals, but was nevertheless recognizable by its horn.

Like its European counterpart, a qilin was a harbinger of greatness: Chinese myth recounts how a pregnant woman was visited by one of the creatures, which informed her her child would grow up to be the famed philosopher Confucius.

It is possible the unicorn myth originated from a deer found with the same unusual antler. 

The Slovenian "unicorn" does not appear to have suffered for its deformity; it was old when shot, and larger than average. 

Tagsunicorn, slovenia, deer, horn, antler