In 1992, researchers in a remote Vietnamese village found a skull with two long, parallel horns — a large mammal completely new to science.Source 1
The saola wears a rich brown coat with white markings across its face, and both sexes carry horns up to twenty inches long.Source 2Source 3
They call it the Asian unicorn — not because it has one horn, but because almost no one has ever seen it.Source 4
No biologist has ever confirmed seeing one alive in the wild, and there is not a single saola in any zoo on Earth.Source 2
The most recent photograph of a wild saola was taken by an automatic camera in 2013, standing in a forest creek.Source 2Source 3
The threat is not even aimed at it: wire snares made from bicycle brake cable, laid by the hundreds for other animals, empty the forest of everything that walks.Source 5Source 1
The search continues with camera traps, environmental DNA — even the blood meals of forest leeches.Source 6
There is room for hope: as little as two percent of its possible range has ever been properly searched.Source 7
Vietnam and Laos are building the first conservation breeding center for Annamite wildlife, with the saola as its flagship.Source 1Source 6
To witness the saola is to keep a place in the world for an animal that may yet walk out of the forest.Source 7
