'Unicorn' deer found in Italy

A deer with a single horn in the centre of its head - much like the fabled, mythical unicorn - has been spotted in a nature preserve in Italy.

"This is fantasy becoming reality," Gilberto Tozzi, director of the Centre of Natural Sciences in Prato, said. "The unicorn has always been a mythological animal."



The one-year-old Roe Deer - nicknamed "Unicorn" - was born in captivity in the research centre's park in the Tuscan town of Prato, near Florence, Tozzi said.

He is believed to have been born with a genetic flaw; his twin has two horns. Calling it the first time he has seen such a case, Tozzi said such anomalies among deer may have inspired the myth of the unicorn.