Question: Is it possible that there were once unicorns? That they are now extinct?

Matthew Pankhurst answered on 17 Jun 2013:

Good question for a palaeontologist! They study extinct life forms. We can only know what the rocks are telling us, and if Unicorns did exist and were preseved by rocks and turned into fossils, there’s a good chance we’d have found them by now. However, there is so much we don’t know about past life and suprises are turning up all the time. In the past few years there have been incredible finds such as feathery dinosaurs! As for a horse with a horn, well, there are lots of examples of large mammals with head gear – such as deer and antelopes – even sheep! The head gear provides an advantage to those with it, so based on that I would say it is possible that a Unicorn-like creature once existed. But as for being exactly like a horse but with a horn (and shinier!) as they are normally drawn I don’t know…..! There is one theory that Unicorns were dreamt up by sailors that found narwhals (a type of whale with an enormous single tusk), they must have had very good imaginations! Imagination is important in science – but we need to find ways of testing our ideas to make it truly into science.