Effective Tips for Hunting Unicorns

Alright, you got us, it was a clickbait title. However, you might be interested in the type of unicorn we’re diving into today. It’s not a white horse that bears a single horn that holds magical and medicinal properties, it’s a buck with one antler.

It is believed that there are multiple causes for this phenomenon, however an Auburn University graduate student sampled a group of 71 single antlered bucks, and found that about 62% of these “unicorn” bucks developed this abnormality after taking damage to their skull, or pedicel. The pedicel is a permanent “bud”-like structure on the skull of a buck from which antlers grow every season. When this pedicel is damaged (most likely from fighting with other bucks), it can cause permanent damage to the affected antler and its growth.

While most of these “unicorns” get their “magic” from an injury, some believe that it can also be hereditary. Just like any living creature, genetic mutations can cause a multitude of abnormalities, and the single antler could be one of these mutations. Deer have been recorded bearing 3 antlers due to genetic malformations, so it doesn’t seem unlikely that the single antler could also stem from genetic development.

While a beautiful horse that shits rainbows would be cool, harvesting a one in a million unicorn buck would be just as cool in our opinion. As we say, never pass on the memories we'd certainly never pass on tagging a unicorn buck!