A CELEBRATED discovery of a mysterious new mammal in South-East Asia is
nothing more than an elaborate fake, say French zoologists.
In 1993, scientists collected several unusual-shaped horns from markets in
Vietnam and Cambodia. Local hunters claimed that the horns came from a
mysterious beast in the forest. The Vietnamese call it “linh duong”, which means
mountain goat. In Khmer, its name is “khting vor”—the wild cow with
liana-like horns.
Biologists thought they had stumbled across an entirely new large, living
mammal—something that has only happened a few times in the past few
decades. The horns looked unlike…
