Unicorns are fascinating mythological animals. They are one-horned animals that are the size of a horse, if not sometimes bigger than a horse. People sometimes wonder if any animals can be one-horned out there.
Of course, a few species out there of animals can have one horn. There are also animals out there. According to their species have two horns, but only have one horn.
The opposite could be true, too, there could be some animals with more than two horns, but we are not talking about that today. Here we are going to talk about animals that only have one horn.
1. One Horned Deer
Deer are very interesting creatures. They are very much prey animals. Deer will typically stand still if they feel
frightened or if they think there is a predator near them.
Sometimes, depending on the deer, deer, they can be born with only one horn or antler, and even more interesting,
they actually could be born without any horn or antler.
It ultimately depends on the animal’s genetics and how they develop inside their mother’s womb. This can give a deer very much a unicorn-like appearance making people I wonder if they could be the real-life counterpart of a unicorn (obviously not, but it is interesting to think about!)
This one-horned deer (pictured above) caught people’s attention with them thinking it was a unicorn, confusing them greatly.
2. Horned Silkworms
Silkworms are interesting creatures because they tend to look like caterpillars, but they actually are notcaterpillars.
Silkworms are just worms that turn into moths. This is also true for the horned silkworm. The horned silkworm also turns into a moth, which is called the horned moth.
The interesting part with these creatures is that the horns are actually the backside of the creature, and the head is on the other side.
People often wonder why this is the case, but it seems to be purely for cosmetic reasons only, as it can help them
avoid getting attacked by predators. This is because if the predator sees the horns on the silkworm, they might give
off the appearance that this is a dangerous animal.
The horned silkworm also can get up to 3 inches in length, which beats the caterpillar’s own length. They also have a
really cool green-looking pattern to them, combined with black. The interesting bit is that the horned silkworms are
bred for their silk because they produce silk. so they are found all over the world because of breeders.
But the horned silkworm was originally native to China years ago, but there are no longer native populations of the horned
silkworm because of breeding.
3. Unicornfish
Fish are not typically known for having horns. There are not that many species of fish that would have horns.
However, the unicornfish does have one horn.
This fish is very much named appropriately for what it has: one horn. This makes it the unicorn of the ocean world.
Though, unlike the unicorn, this fish isn’t exactly known for its beauty either. All jokes aside, this fish does
have a horn-like appendage sticking out of its skull.
There are actually many different species of unicornfish out there. Some of them are naturally big and others are naturally small. Although, some can grow as big as 2 feet and have over two-inch horns.
This definitely does make it have a unique appearance because it actually isn’t known what these horns are meant for in the first place. Unicornfish are not really known to fight or kill their prey, so it could be for purely cosmetic reasons to avoid predators like the horned silkworm.
4. Narwhals
Narwhals are very interesting creatures. They look like whales but with one giant differentiating feature: a giant horn-like object protruding out of its head.
It actually could be debatable that it is a horn on the narwhal since its “horn” is actually a giant tooth. But we will let it slide because it looks close enough to be a horn.
And actually, they have another smaller tooth next to its bigger “tooth” or”horn” (from now on, we will refer to it as a horn and not a tooth). that isn’t visible when you first look at the animal.
But at least it looks like a horn when you look at the animal. These majestic species of animal life in the ocean are often considered the unicorns of the sea. The horn of the creature seems to almost twist around itself and into the head of the creature.
These creatures live in the arctic waters around Russa, Canada, Greenland, and other places where it is cold. Because of this, they are very much used to the cold and almost never go to warmer waters.
These things’ horns don’t seem to be for hunting but for navigating the colder waters to figure out where to go next. They are also used for foraging around the waters to find food to eat, and male narwhals are also known to fight each other with their horns.
So yes, these horns are meant more for their survival than the likes of the unicornfish and the horned silkworms. This makes them really majestic and cool-looking creatures.
5. Rhinoceros
Although this is pretty obvious, we couldn’t have a list of one-horned animals without mentioning the rhinoceros. This creature is probably the most well-known when people think of one-horned animals. Of course, this is the Indian rhinoceros and not other rhinos. Other Rhinos typically have two horns, whereas the Indian rhino only has one.
The Indian rhino is known for its long horn. But the horn can get pretty big, with the horn growing up to 3 feet long! Of course, it is well-known that this horn is for catching and killing other animals for food. But rhinos, including Indian rhinos, will fight other male rhinos for dominance and/or get the right mate.
But the sad part is that Indian rhinos don’t really exist much in the wild because they have been hunted to near extinction. Most of the Indian rhino population lives in a single national park in India, called the Kaziranga national park in northeast India, where roughly 3000 Indian rhinos live, or over 70% of the Indian rhino population.
6. Cassowary
Cassowaries are very interesting birds. Not many birds, if at all, are known to have horns at all. Of course, they have beaks that are made out of the same thing, but beaks are more or less used for eating and not fighting. Birds that fight can actually break their breaks too since they don’t have many other tools to fight with. And a broken beak can kill them, like a broken neck.
Cassowaries are very aggressive birds and don’t take likely of humans at all, and they are not meant to be toyed with. These birds are actually known to chase humans down to scare them away.
They will attack unprovoked, and not much is known about their behavior because of their aggressiveness because scientists can’t study them because of
their aggressive behavior.
The interesting thing with Cassowaries is that the females have bigger horns than the males. It is unknown why this is because in the animal kingdom, makes typically have bigger horns.
Though one theory could be that the mother would need to protect her offspring from potential predators, and that could be why they would have bigger horns.
Cassowaries are only found in Australia and New Guinea, where they are native to tropical forests.
7. Rhino-Horned Lizard
The Rhino-Horned Lizard is a very interesting creature. It is very much named after the rhinoceros but is a single-horned lizard with a horn protruding directly from the snout.
This is interesting because the horn is usually located on the animal’s head.
These animals spend most of their time up in the trees and hard moving, living a lifestyle similar to that of a sloth.
(arboreal lifestyle). These lizards are native to Sri Lanka, with a large population.
8. Rhinoceros Beetle
This is an interesting one because the rhinoceros beetle is a bug and not a vertebrate, meaning these horns also be common in the insect world. The rhinoceros beetle, obviously named after the rhinoceros, is known to have larger horns, especially if the beetle is male.
There are actually multiple species of the rhinoceros beetle found across the world, with the exception of continents like Antarctica. With some species growing up to 6 inches long!
We talked about animals that have one horn. As we mentioned previously, there are many different animals
that can have one horn, with the most obvious being the Indian rhino, but also beetles can have horns too- like the
rhino beetle.
We hope you learned something new and interesting from this list, because it was fun compiling it!