Asian Unicorn Photographed In Vietnam For First Time In 15 Years

The Asian Unicorn has been spotted in Vietnam for the first time in the 21st century.

Asian Unicorn In Vietnam (Wikimedia Commons)

Officially called a saola, the critically endangered Asian Unicorn was photographed in September by a camera trap set by WWF and the Vietnamese government’s Forest Protection Department in the Central Annamite mountains.

"When our team first looked at the photos we couldn’t believe our eyes. Saola are the holy grail for South-east Asian conservationists so there was a lot of excitement," said Dr. Van Ngoc Thinh, WWF-Vietnam’s Country Director. "This is a breath-taking discovery and renews hope for the recovery of the species."

The Asian Unicorn looks like a small deer or antelope with two horns and are thought to number from a few dozen to a few hundred. The last confirmed record of the rare species in the wild was in 1999 from camera-trap photos taken in the Laos province of Bolikhamxay. It was last sighted in Vietnam in 1998.

In the area where the Asian Unicorn was photographed, WWF’s Preservation of Carbon Sinks and Biodiversity Conservation (CarBi) Programme has implemented an innovative law enforcement model in which Forest Guards are recruited from local communities, and co-managed by WWF and Vietnamese government counterparts, to remove snares and tackle illegal hunting, the greatest threat to the saola’s survival.

The Asian Unicorn was discovered in 1992 by a joint team from Vietnam’s Ministry of Forestry (now called Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development) and WWF surveying the forests of Vu Quang, near Vietnam's border with Laos. The team found a skull with unusual horns in a hunter's home and knew it was something extraordinary. The find proved to be the first large mammal new to science in more than 50 years and one of the most spectacular species discoveries of the 20th century.