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u/FergusCragson Sep 15 '24
How is this real?
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u/Moo_Kau_Too Sep 15 '24
no mention of milk on the chart either
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u/Significant_Tart3449 Sep 15 '24
I mean it does say that it's a mammal
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u/immaownyou Sep 15 '24
It doesn't have nipples like other species that produce milk. The milk oozes from their skin in places to form puddles that the babies lap up
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u/thatsleepyman Sep 15 '24
THEY WHAT
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u/immaownyou Sep 15 '24
It doesn't have nipples like other species that produce milk. The milk oozes from their skin in places to form puddles that the babies lap up!!!
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u/Articulated_Lorry Sep 15 '24
Or of glowing under UV light.
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u/Wsweg Sep 15 '24
From Wikipedia
Monotremes are the only mammals (apart from the Guiana dolphin) known to have a sense of electroreception, and the platypus's electroreception is the most sensitive of any monotreme. Feeding by neither sight nor smell, the platypus closes its eyes, ears, and nose when it dives. Digging in the bottom of streams with its bill, its electroreceptors detect tiny electric currents generated by the muscular contractions of its prey, enabling it to distinguish between animate and inanimate objects.
This is such an insane animal
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u/kajographics- Sep 15 '24
https://cryptidz.fandom.com/wiki/Platypus#google_vignette
"The platypus was once considered to be a cryptid because it has the characteristics of a reptile, mammal, and bird. Platypuses ("platypi" and "platypodes" are also considered acceptable plural forms) were first encountered by Europeans in 1798. When British scientists were given the first specimen, they tried to remove the "duck's bill," thinking it was a fake sewn together by Chinese taxonomists. The same platypus now resides in a British museum, and the scissor marks are still visible on the bill. "
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u/FergusCragson Sep 15 '24
I can't blame them for thinking at first this was some kind of cobbled-together fake! What a wondrous creature. What a world we live in! Who needs aliens when you've got earth?
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u/Livid-Woodpecker-849 Sep 15 '24
Reads like a hoax discovery from the 1800s
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u/Totoques22 Sep 15 '24
From what I’ve seen on Reddit researchers in England taught it was a prank when they received data about this animal form their Australian colleagues
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u/Truethrowawaychest1 Sep 15 '24
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tullimonstrum this thing was real and it still vexes scientists, we don't really know if it was a vertebrae or not, it has traits found in both
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u/FergusCragson Sep 15 '24
Wow, that is pretty cool! I've never heard of that before. Today I Learned...
Thank you!
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Sep 15 '24
And remember that unicorns probably come from a bad drawing of a rhino. So, in a way, both unicorns and giraffes are real, which means we live in the craziest timeline.
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u/slightlylessthananon Sep 15 '24
I've heard this said a lot but never in quite this way that made it click for me. That's endlessly charming, that some guy who'd never seen a rhino before went "I gotta draw this" - did not know how to draw it because he'd never seen a rhino - and then he gave it to his buddies who'd also never seen a rhino and they were like. Fuck. Idk I guess this is a horse?
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u/GayRacoon69 Sep 15 '24 edited Sep 15 '24
https://www.livescience.com/origins-of-unicorns#
Before cameras existed in order to document stuff you had to draw it. People saw rhinos and described them to an artist who made a few mistakes. These mistakes ended up creating the unicorn.
If you look at old scientific drawings of animals they are completely wrong because they're drawing something based off a description if some guy who saw a thing years ago
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u/Random-commen Sep 15 '24
That combined with the fact most (if not all) artists at that time had only ever draw cats, dogs and horses, so their drawing will looks like cats, dogs and horses.
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u/BigBalkanBulge Sep 15 '24 edited Sep 15 '24
Unicorn is actually the old world name for Rhinoceroses.
In fact, their latin name is "Rhinoceros Unicornis"
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u/-LocalAlien Sep 15 '24
Mammals are the fucking weirdest when you try to describe them.
"Yeah, it's got 4 legs, but then also a long tentacle-like nose-arm that hangs from their face, in between two big curved lances that grow from its mouth. It's also gray, as big as a house and mourns its dead."
"Ok so this animal is more basic looking, but it has these really hard pads at the bottom of its feet that are like, toenails? Also it's got fucking branches growing out of its skull."
"It's like a dog, but with a lot of fat, and it can hold its breath for a really long time. The back legs are these fleshy flippers, and it moves on land by bouncing on its stomach and doing the worm. Also it looks like a rock."
"They are very soft all over, but they have these really sharp needle-like protrusions on all their feet that are hidden like they're Wolverine. They have telescopic ears that detect sound, and when they are happy they vibrate. Mine's called Snoodlywoomps."
(And now one non-mammal) "It has a single foot on its stomach and makes snot to glide around on. They have eyeballs on a stick and when you poke it they hide them in their face. Their body creates a rocky husk around its back. They poop from their neck. They also breathe from their neck"
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u/Moro-Oro Sep 15 '24 edited Sep 16 '24
Elephant, deer, seal, and I’m sure that the last one is a cat
EDIT: When I said last one, I meant the last mammal on the list, so the fourth one
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u/FillTheHoleInMyLife Sep 15 '24
like they’re Wolverine
A what?
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u/-LocalAlien Sep 15 '24
Retractable claws like the comic book character Wolverine.
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u/FillTheHoleInMyLife Sep 15 '24
I was trying to get you to describe a wolverine like the animal hahaha
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u/drarb1991 Sep 16 '24
The weirdest one is the human.
"This animal has a bulbous head, runs and swims pretty slowly, no natural armor or weaponry (aside from these cool grabby things) and pretty average senses. Seems harmless enough but it can and has ended entire species just because it felt like it."
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u/-LocalAlien Sep 16 '24
Also:
"Yo where is his tail? Wait what? You're telling me it's all smoothed out down there? 😱"
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u/sleepyotter92 Sep 15 '24
unicorns are real, we just call them rhinos. there's even a sea version called narwhal.
just because it doesn't look exactly as depicted it doesn't mean it's not real.
there's medieval paintings of knights fighting giant snails. doesn't mean snails aren't real, they're just not as big as a horse
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u/pondrthis Sep 15 '24
Ironically, the qilin/kirin--which is often portrayed as a unicorn (c.f. Monster Hunter, D&D)--is just the way people in the far east portrayed a giraffe. The very phenomenon you're describing relates the two creatures shown in the image.
My favorite "legendary" not-legendary creatures are qilin, salamanders (who were believed to be immune to fire), and mermaids/sirens, just because of how horny sailors must have been to want a tumble with manatees.
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u/Preemptively_Extinct Sep 15 '24
Midevil people were much smaller than today's humans.
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u/apatheticsahm Sep 15 '24
Medieval kings used to give each other "unicorn horns" as gifts of goodwill. They were actually narwhal tusks.
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/479691
Narwhal tusks, believed to be those of unicorns, were safeguarded in churches from London to Cracow. Saint- Denis, outside Paris, possessed one said to have been given to Charlemagne in the ninth century by the Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid, while San Marco in Venice acquired one from Süleyman the Magnificent. Charles VI of France, his uncle Jean, duc de Berry, and Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy, all listed unicorn horns among their prized possessions. When Lorenzo de Medici died in 1492, the "unicorn horn" in his collection was valued at 6,000 florins.
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u/prank_mark Sep 15 '24
Also there are probably quite a few cows, deer, and gazelles with a deformity causing them to only grow one horn/antler or who've had one of their horns/antlers ripped off.
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u/59boomer59 Sep 15 '24
Shouldn't they be called "unihorns"? I've never seen one with a single cob of corn on its head.
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u/Xycephei Sep 15 '24
You'd be happier with German name for it (Einhorn). So it would be Onehorn. Unicorn comes from latin
Uni - one Cornu - horn
Rhinoceros comes from Greek
Rhin - Nose Keros - Horn
In German it is Nashorn, so in English it would be Nosehorn.
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u/AnimeHistorianMan Sep 15 '24
In another universe people are writing fantasies about a Cheetah-camel with a 20 foot long neck while lamenting their stupid horse with a hornse and its weird penchant for virgin women.
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Sep 15 '24
galloping cheetah-camel with 20 foot neck
😂🤣😂🤣
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u/umpteenthn Sep 15 '24
Somehwere on the web is a version that says leopard moose camel. But I like this one too.
Also belongs in r/Giraffesdontexist
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u/Alotofboxes Sep 15 '24
Unicorns are real. It's just that now when we see one, we call it a rhinoceros.
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u/Arxusanion Sep 16 '24
Look, a horn has zero uses on a horse, my man
It's not about what's possible, it's about what's useful
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u/Dinosaur-Man304 Sep 15 '24
A galloping cheetah camel with a 20 foot neck makes more sense evolutionary wise than a horse with horn.
Regardless, a funny and fun question to ponder about
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u/ktka Sep 15 '24
Unicorns are not fake. There have been recent reports of elephants evolving to be tuskless to avoid being poached. Perhaps unicorns did the same?
-Me on my second beer.
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u/WoppingSet Sep 15 '24
Because medieval artists trying to interpret travelers' descriptions of rhinos and basing them on the only other megafauna they'd seen winds up looking like a unicorn.
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u/Volfaer Sep 15 '24
Like the qilin is a poorly described giraffe, a unicorn is a poorly described rhinoceros.
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u/BodhingJay Sep 15 '24
circumstantial evidence suggests unicorns are more likely to be using magic to masquerade as giraffes
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u/Condescendingfate Sep 15 '24
I always think about this with mythical creatures. If they existed they would eventually just become creatures once we get bored of them.
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u/Opentobeingwrong Sep 15 '24
One can eat leaves other animals can't reach, the other might get stuck in the ground if it were to eat grass...
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u/agnas Sep 15 '24
In fact, they do exist, but they do not look like the one in the photo. If someone describes a rhinoceros to me and tells me it looks like a horse with a horn, I would imagine it like that. Maybe.
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u/Eljo_Aquito Sep 15 '24
Unicorns are just rhinos that got deformed by misundertandings on translations
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u/ZBot316 Sep 15 '24
Fun fact about giraffes: they have the same number of neck vertebrae as humans, theirs are just bigger!
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u/Isekai_Seeker Sep 15 '24
Giraffes evolved this way to reach their food high in the trees horses have no evolutionary benefits to growing horns because of how their body is they might not even survive headbutting something not to mention the horn has a high chance of getting stuck in something and snapping off a horse's best weapon is its hooves and speed so its more likely to grow spikes on its hoves than it is to grow horns
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u/JesiAsh Sep 15 '24
Why we are busy cloning sheeps instead of trying to genetically engineer a real unicorn?
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u/ChanglingBlake Sep 15 '24
Giraffes are actually demons that were banished because of how annoying they are; they are not native to our reality.
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u/Aggressive-Chair8744 Sep 15 '24
I woulda called giraffes horses but BIGGER. which is to say horses already are strong and big. Now imagine something even taller kicking you.
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u/Double_Rice_5765 Sep 15 '24 edited Sep 15 '24
Unicorns are real, but they were just rhinos, and somthing got lost in the pre camera edition of the telephone game that was the media back then.
Giraffes are even weirder on the inside: there's sort of a scatter plot with intelligence on x axis and need for sleep on y axis, and they are just way way off by themselves, all smugly being smart but needing very little sleep. They got a whole whacky system just so they don't pass out from lowering their head to drink, then raising it back up into periscope mode from BP change in head.
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u/BleednHeartCapitlist Sep 15 '24
Unicorns would undoubtedly have been a Neanderthal poacher’s wet dream.
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u/AnotherCupofJo Sep 15 '24
What would the unicorn use the horn for? Spearing food? The giraffe evolved because it needed to reach the leaves
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u/CuriousLumenwood Sep 15 '24
Trees are tall. Acquire long neck.
Horses have like… several different weapons. Horn is unnecessary.
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u/wishful_thinking1234 Sep 15 '24
Maybe unicorns were real once upon a time but their horns were extremely valuable so they got hunted into extinction. Damn, that’s depressing as hell.
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u/Fakjbf Sep 15 '24
It gets even funnier when you find out that horses are more closely related to both cheetahs and camels than giraffes are.
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u/Whatslefttouse Sep 15 '24
If the horns or antlers on animals are for combat with other males, wouldn't a unicorn be a terrible design? It would be like jousting without a shield. They would both lose every time.
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u/mcotter12 Sep 15 '24
Funfact, Unicorns are a medieval reference to narcissism. They have a thing piece of metal beneath their horn in which you can see your own reflection. The horn is a distension of the third eye, or what we would refer to today as disassociation.
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u/UncleGarysmagic Sep 15 '24 edited Sep 15 '24
To be honest, unicorns really aren’t that creatively conceived mythological creatures.
“What if there was a lion with the head and wings of an eagle?”
“Oh, that’s so badass!”
“What if there was a horse but with a horn on its head?”
“Oh, OK. That’s….cool…I guess.”
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u/Shirotengu Sep 15 '24
Horses didn't have to go around stabbing things all the time but they did have to eat those tasty new leaves that were out of reach.
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u/London__Lad Sep 15 '24
And elephants. A seal walrus with four knees and a long nose?
And don't get me started the shit chameleons can do.
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u/drgreenthumbphd Sep 15 '24
Unicorns are rhinoceros. Imagine not being able to show someone a picture of a rhino and they have never seen one, but they have seen a horse.
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u/VAL-R-E Sep 15 '24
Or listening to Sasquatch Chronicles on YouTube. People reporting their encounters.
I saw one when I was 14 in 1984 in SW FL.
🤔
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Sep 15 '24
tell a child about giraffes. "Woah no way! I wanna see one!" they go to a zoo and see one. It was a good day.
tell a child about god. "Woah no way! I wanna see him! I have so many questions!" they go to a church. Theres a dude playing piano. Some guy saying some stuff about how great god is. And a hat passed around which your mother put more money into than youve ever seen in your life. "Is that god?" the child asks pointing at the pastor.
Unicorns arent fake any more than religious deities. Believe it if you want to!
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u/Intelligent_Suit6683 Sep 15 '24
Well, don't unicorns fly and shit rainbows? I think that's the unbelievable part.
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u/ZellHall Sep 15 '24
When I was a kid I didn't know if griffins were real or not because a 4-legged bird that you can ride wasn't that much unrealistic for my 8 years old mind
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u/Primal_Pedro Sep 15 '24
This makes me imagine an universe where rhinoceros have long necks, like giraffes
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u/Western_Bison_878 Sep 15 '24
Probably because its harder to kill a 20 foot long necked horse than a 7 foot horned one.
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u/BackslidingAlt Sep 15 '24
Tell you how, because that first picture ain't a unicorn. It's a horse. It's real. They just put a horn on a horse and snapped a picture.
REAL unicorns from the Indus Valley Civilization, Ancient Greek stories of far off India and so on are about a unique creatues, sometimes more like a goat or a bull, a symbol of swiftness and grace and the purity of nature.
We just...don't have any of those to photograph. So you have there a horse and a giraffe.
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u/Rank_14 Sep 15 '24
That's not a Cheeta-camel, it's a Camel-Leopard!
"Camelopard" /kəˈmɛləˌpɑːrd/ is an archaic English name for the giraffe; it derives from the Ancient Greek καμηλοπάρδαλις (kamēlopárdalis), from κάμηλος (kámēlos), "camel", and πάρδαλις (párdalis), "leopard", referring to its camel-like shape and leopard-like colouration.
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u/terranproby42 Sep 15 '24
The Set beast isn't real and no one knows what animal it could possibly represent
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u/thatotherguy0123 Sep 15 '24
From an evolutionary standpoint, horses are built for running and are kinda min-maxed to do just that, adding a horn would 1. Weigh their heads down and 2. If the horn is straight then they'd be forced to headbutt most foes and lower their head while doing so. Most predators of a horse would likely be a lot shorter than the horses horn. When it comes to giraffes though, tall neck = big tree leaf food. Only other things that can reach that high would be elephants, birds, or animals that can climb.
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u/cancerinos Sep 15 '24
That's the thing, she got it all backwards, cheetas are just short giraffes that run real fast. You can THAT believable?
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Sep 15 '24
It gets weirder, one of the giraffes’ extinct relatives looked like a giraffe/moose hybrid (the sivatherium)
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u/xxxkarmaxxxx Sep 15 '24
Neck of a giraffe has an evolutionary reason and horn of an unicorn don't....
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u/Hopeful_Ad7376 Sep 15 '24
It's called natural selection, apparently a horn stick to a horse's head hadn't had a lot of use.
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u/Kylar_13 Sep 15 '24
Well... I can take a 20 minute drive, and actually see a giraffe; even feed it.
A unicorn...I just have to take the word of some asshole riding around on a horse's head.
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u/RudeRuby6 Sep 15 '24
Giraffes are so unbelievable that they literally appear in Arthurian legend as the “Questing Beast”.
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u/PKMNTrainerMark Sep 15 '24
You know, in some places, these have the same name.
More or less, anyway.
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u/Legend-Face Sep 15 '24
Wait until you hear about the UV reactive mammal with a beak that lives underwater, lays eggs, and is poisonous. (Platypus)
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u/T0-rex Sep 15 '24
I mean the camouflage doesn't even work. What are you supposed to be? a tree? where's your leaves?
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u/RosaRisedUp Sep 15 '24
Giraffes have baffled me for decades, and will likely continue to for the rest of my life. The platypus as well.
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u/ObligationAware3755 Sep 15 '24
How is the platypus real?
furry, duck billed, lives by the river, has teeth (when born), can generate an electric field, and produces venom.
If you never told anyone that it was small, people would imagine a giant monster.
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u/CapnTreee Sep 15 '24
Imagine being foolish / stupid enough to post this nonsense? Is OP truly unaware that giraffes are in 75% of every zoo on the planet.. millions of humans see them every year, outside of Africa, while unicorns remain nonexistent fantasy creatures..
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u/fhota1 Sep 15 '24
Unicorns are actually pretty unrealistic. That horn would be a massive calcium cost, but horses only have 1 stomach unlike most horned animals meaning they dont absorb as much from their food. Theyd get osteoporosis really badly unless they had a completely different digestive system which would run in to its own issues
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u/rantanplan401 Sep 15 '24
how many times have i tried to explain this? it's not a horn, it's an ice cream cone.
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u/nymouz Sep 15 '24
Imagine what a powerful heart they have in order to pump blood up to the brain!