Scientists Just Discovered Unicorns Were Real, But With A Big Twist
Your childhood dreams have come true! Well, sorta...
Our whole lives, we were told unicorns weren't real, forcing us to live in a state of constant disappointment.
Google classifies unicorns as a "mythical creature."
So, we used our imaginations to create a beautiful, majestic dream horse, complete with wide eyes and a spiraling horn atop its head.
But NEWS FLASH: Technically unicorns DID roam the earth... and much more recently than we thought. Unfortch, they looked less like Lisa Frank unicorns and more like this stumpy fella.
A new study in the American Journal of Applied Sciences found that the Siberian unicorn (scientifically called Elasmotherium sibiricum) roamed the earth as recently as 29,000 years ago.
Crazy right?!
What's crazier is that until now, scientists believed these creatures had been extinct for more than 350,000 years. Researchers from Russia's Tomsk State University discovered a carbon-dated fossilized skull, which revealed the dating was off by more than 300,000 years.
Aaaand unlike pop culture has led us to believe, the Siberian unicorn resembled that of a hefty rhino. Ew.
Their size was actually closer to that of a woolly mammoth than a horse — it's estimated they were six feet tall and 15 feet long , weighing around 9,000 pounds. Can you even imagine?!
So while it's cool that unicorns did, in fact, exist, we'd rather stick to the magical version. For obvious reasons.
Because the real unicorns we know and love are pictured right here, on Lizzie McGuire's sweater.
