Saola

About this species

Size

Shoulder height about 84cm; head and body about 150cm (one captive female)

Habitat

High-altitude wet evergreen forest, preferring river valleys; 300–1,800m

Range

Annamite Range, Vietnam and Laos

The saola, also called the spindlehorn, Asian unicorn or Vu Quang bovid, is a forest-dwelling bovid native to the Annamite Range in Vietnam and Laos. It was first described in 1993 after remains were discovered in Vu Quang National Park by a joint survey of the Vietnamese Ministry of Forestry and the World Wide Fund for Nature. The first photograph of a living saola was taken in captivity in 1993, and the most recent record, from 2013, was taken by a camera trap in the forest of central Vietnam (Wikipedia, general species account).

Saolas have been kept in captivity several times but died within weeks or months. They have a chocolate-brown coat with white patches on the face, throat and neck sides, a black dorsal stripe, and a pair of nearly parallel horns on both sexes; one captive female measured 84 cm at the shoulder and 150 cm in head-body length. The saola has one of the smallest ranges of any large mammal, about 5,000 km² in Vietnam and Laos including four nature reserves, and migrates to lower ground in winter. It is apparently solitary, though groups of two to seven have been reported, and is active by day and night.

Description: Wildlife of Vietnam guide, Wildlife of Everywhere (wildlifeofeverywhere.com); general species information paraphrased from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)