10 Weirdest Extinct Creatures

7. Elasmotherium

In an age long before the Harley Davidson and the customised Subaru, there weren't many ways to compensate for small penis syndrome. Fortunately, the presumably poorly-endowed elasmotherium had got it all worked out. Reconstructions of the elasmotherium vary rather wildly, though many experts believe it was as large as a woolly mammoth (twice the size of a rhino), with a horn that is rarely depicted as being less than a couple of feet long. While scientists aren't certain what the horn was for, it is generally accepted that, like the elasmotherium€™s modern rhinocerine descendants, it was probably used to spar with rivals, impress females and fend off any predators stupid enough to try their luck. Interestingly, one gang of stupid predators who momentarily lived alongside elasmotherium were those handsome devils, the Homo sapiens. However, whether our ancestors ever actually hunted these 5 tonne rhinos boils down to speculation. Though elasmotherium had terrible eyesight, their sense of smell was excellent, their horselike legs allowed them to gallop at speed and, you know, that horn is pretty scary. I certainly wouldn€™t fancy my chances. Nevertheless, we surely paid attention to them. Palaeolithic art in France's Rouffignac Cave depicts what looks like a rhinoceros with a single enormous horn. Elasmotherium bone fragments have also been found in caves, probably placed there by ancient humans. There is even some fairly compelling evidence to suggest that the creature was the source of the global unicorn legends. Either prehistoric stories of the beast miraculously persisted from the time of their extinction in 50,000 BC into modern folklore, or some very small groups survived much longer than we are aware of and were encountered by early explorers. So, the Elasmotherium: real life unicorn or rhino with genital insecurity?