Saola

The saola is a forest-dwelling bovid native to the Annamite mountain range along the border of Vietnam and Laos, so rarely seen that it is sometimes called the Asian unicorn. It was first identified by science only in 1993, following the discovery of remains in Vietnam's Vu Quang National Park by a joint survey of the Vietnamese Ministry of Forestry and the World Wide Fund for Nature, one of the more significant large-mammal discoveries of the twentieth century. It is the sole member of its genus, Pseudoryx, and the earliest-diverging member of the tribe that includes cattle and buffalo, its closest living relatives. The saola is listed as critically endangered, threatened chiefly by snares set for other animals in its forest habitat, with a population estimated at only 50 to 300 individuals as of 2015 and growing concern that the species may already be extinct or headed for extinction within years without intervention; the most recent confirmed photograph of a wild saola was taken by a camera trap in 2013.