The saola, an antelope-like endangered mammal, has been caught on camera for the first time in the 21st century. The animal, dubbed the “Asian Unicorn” because it is so rarely seen, was photographed in Vietnam’s Central Annamite mountains. 
 
 “When our team first looked at the photos we couldn’t believe our eyes,” Dr. Van Ngoc Thinh, the World Wildlife Fund director in Vietnam, said in a statement announcing the photos. “Saola are the holy grail for South-east Asian conservationists so there was a lot of excitement.” 
 
 The last reported saola sighting was in 1999 in Laos, and the last time one was spotted in Vietnam was in 1998, the WWF said. 
 
 When the saola was discovered in 1992, it was the first large mammal new to science in more than 50 years, according to the WWF. The animal is a cousin of cattle, and it’s made distinct by its two parallel horns with sharp ends that can grow as long as 1½ feet. 
 
 
 
 Even 20 years after its discovery, little is known about the saola’s ecology or behavior because the animal is so elusive. The WWF estimates that at most there are a few hundred of them living in the forests along the Vietnam-Laos border. 
 
 The photo released by the WWF was taken in September by a camera trap. 
 
 “These are the most important wild animal photographs taken in Asia, and perhaps the world, in at least the past decade,” William Robichaud, coordinator of the Saola Working Group of the IUCN Species Survival Commission, said in the WWF statement. “They are also inspiring evidence of the effectiveness of the forest guards model to keep saola from sliding into the abyss of extinction.” 
 
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 laura.davis@latimes.com ||||| The sighting of the saola, often called the 'Asian Unicorn' because humans so seldom see these horned animals, suggests that efforts to rescue Vietnam’s endangered animals are making progress, the WWF said. 
 
 The saola, one of the rarest mammals on the planet, has been caught on camera in Vietnam for the first time in 15 years, spurring hope that it might be possible to save the animal from extinction, the WWF said. 
 
 In a jubilant moment for conservationists, the so-called “Asian Unicorn�? was seen on a camera in one of Vietnam’s remote provinces, the WWF said on Wednesday. The sighting of the saola, a doppelgänger for an antelope, suggests that efforts to rescue Vietnam’s endangered animals are making progress, the agency said. 
 
 The saola (pronounced sow-la) is a slim bovine that lives just in the Annamite Mountains ribbing Vietnam and Laos. It has two sharp, parallel horns that can grow up to 20 inches in length; in Vietnamese, saola means “spindle horns.�? Humans so seldom see these horned animals that saola are often called “Asian unicorns.�? 
 
 The saola was not found until 1992, when a joint team from Vietnam’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and WWF surveyed Vu Quang, the forested, species-rich region near the Vietnam-Laos border. Even then, the team found not the animal itself, but just a skull, displayed in a hunter’s home. It was less of a unicorn, and more a ghost of a unicorn. It was the first large mammal new to science in over 50 years, the WWF said. 
 
 The saola was seen in September on a camera set up in the Central Annamite mountains in Vietnam, the WWF said. The rare species was last seen on camera in 1998, in Bolikhamxay province, Laos. Villagers in the same province captured one in 2010, but it died before researchers could reach it. It has not been seen in Vietnam since 1999, the WWF said. 
 
 Since sightings are so infrequent, there is little data on saola population numbers. The WWF has estimated the number to be in the hundreds. 
 
 “When our team first looked at the photos we couldn’t believe our eyes,�? said Van Ngoc Thinh, WWF-Vietnam’s Country Director, in a WWF statement. “Saola are the holy grail for South-east Asian conservationists so there was a lot of excitement.�? 
 
 “This is a breath-taking discovery and renews hope for the recovery of the species,�? he said. 
 
 Vietnam, swaddled in jungles and for years racked by war, now teems with discoveries of species new to science. In just the Vu Quang region alone, researchers have identified three new species of deer, a new kind of pheasant, an unusual cow alleged to eat snakes, and multiple new varieties of fish. 
 
 But as much as these recent years have been defined by discoveries in Vietnam, these have also been years of extinctions. Vietnam’s last known Javan rhino, one of five rhino species, was found slaughtered in the forest in 2010, the victim of horn-hunting poachers. And a 2012 list from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) said that five out of 100 of the world’s most endangered species lived in Vietnam, Thanh Nien Daily reported. Those included the saola, as well as a giant soft-shell turtle, a langur, a pheasant, and a pangasius fish. 
 
 Still, the WWF said the saola sighting indicates that Vietnam’s efforts to save its rare species are working. Since 2011, forest guard patrols have stripped 30,000 snares from the area where the saola was seen and have dismantled 600 illegal hunting camps, the WWF said.
– One conservationist went so far is to call them "the most important wild animal photographs taken in Asia, and perhaps the world, in at least the past decade." That's because, captured in them, is an image of the "Asian Unicorn." That's the nickname given to the elusive saola, an endangered animal that wasn't discovered until 1992 and is so rarely seen that the last on-record appearance in Vietnam was in 1998, reports the Los Angeles Times. (Villagers in Laos managed to trap one, which died days later, in 2010.) This time, a camera trap set up by a World Wildlife Fund team snapped the creature in September in Vietnam’s Central Annamite mountains. With only a few hundred of them (at most) thought to be in the forests that sit along the Vietnam-Laos border, the team's director calls the saola "the holy grail for South-east Asian conservationists." What's more, notes the Christian Science Monitor, the sighting could be a good omen for conservation efforts in Vietnam, which is home to five of the world's most endangered species—including the saola. The creature's nickname is a bit of a misnomer, though; the AFP points out that the antelope-like creature (actually a cousin of the cow) has two horns, not one, which have sharp ends and can grow to 20 inches in length.