Yes, inspired by Zed.

There have been various depictions of unicorns throughout history ranging from the more equestrian to more goat like animals. The horn has been presented twisted, straight, curved and pretty much everything else. The creature may have magical properties- especially in the horn- or perhaps be a sacred and noble quadruped. Here, in this thread, all those interested shall come to together to find the folklore or history behind this and finally pin the tail on the unicorn for good. We do kinda need to define what the heck those things are anyway. Right?

So, there's the theory about the gazelles which seems plausible. It explains the spiral horn thing and all but, I don't think the cultures that had the idea of this creature saw much gazelles; they were more of nor(thern)folk. Puns intended. I'm about to set my research machine on. Anyone may pitch in.

Q&A:

Quote from Guitarii

Who the fuck even thought about unicorns in the first place

The ancient Greeks considered to be an actual animal in India. The Hebrews also mention re'em which are more or less unicorns(or bicorns). I would say the Hebrews but, it's a kind of complicated thing.

case closed

Entirely plausible. About to check DNA structures and shiz to verify. Also, Narwhal tusks are overgrown teeth, not skull horns.

Can we just talk about narwhals instead?

Perhaps. How did the Narwhal manage to screw the horse/mare that sprouted the Unicorn?

Quote from Naimad

Perhaps. How did the Narwhal manage to screw the horse/mare that sprouted the Unicorn?

Sometimes you are better off not knowing.

Quote from Rosie

Sometimes you are better off not knowing.

Why don't you tell us? Aren't you a unicorn?

Seriously, though, I'm never better off not knowing. It's always better to know what's going on than suffer in ignorance.

Quote from Naimad

Why don't you tell us? Aren't you a unicorn?

Seriously, though, I'm never better off not knowing. It's always better to know what's going on than suffer in ignorance.

You're adopted, Jamal.

Quote from sss

You're adopted, Jamal.

Oh, shoot. You just really screwed up, man. I'm Jerome.

Who the fuck even thought about unicorns in the first place

Zed. It's in the first post. Wait, do you mean who was the first to speak of them? I'll go on a quest to merrily answer your question.

:)

Saul Kripke argued that unicorns are necessarily non-existent. He thinks "not existing" is an essential property that unicorns have, and if we found evidence of a horse with a horn then we would not regard it as a unicorn. He thinks that if we found something which looked like a tiger but had a different internal structure then it would not be a tiger, and therefore the internal structure of an animal is part of its essential properties, but since we don't know anything about the internal structure of a unicorn we could never identify whether a given animal had unicorn-structure or not.

I'm always inclined to call bullshit on anything Kripke says ever. If we found something which looked like a tiger but had a different biology then it would just be a new species of tiger, and "tiger" would cover both. As precedent, it was discovered that the forest elephant is a different species to the African elephant, but they're still both elephants. Likewise, any horse with a horn is a unicorn, regardless of the other facts about what it can breed with or whatever.

Quote from Zed

:)

Saul Kripke argued that unicorns are necessarily non-existent. He thinks "not existing" is an essential property that unicorns have, and if we found evidence of a horse with a horn then we would not regard it as a unicorn. He thinks that if we found something which looked like a tiger but had a different internal structure then it would not be a tiger, and therefore the internal structure of an animal is part of its essential properties, but since we don't know anything about the internal structure of a unicorn we could never identify whether a given animal had unicorn-structure or not.

I'm always inclined to call bullshit on anything Kripke says ever. If we found something which looked like a tiger but had a different biology then it would just be a new species of tiger, and "tiger" would cover both. As precedent, it was discovered that the forest elephant is a different species to the African elephant, but they're still both elephants. Likewise, any horse with a horn is a unicorn, regardless of the other facts about what it can breed with or whatever.

It could be a subspecies or other species in the same genus. Of course, it won't be the same animal.

Anyway, if we don't know about unicorns' internal biology than we can't prove that it isn't a unicorn or bicorn either.

Lesson: Don't trust most philosophers with biology.