Saola (Pseudoryx nghetinhensis), is one of the rarest animals in the world living in the remote forest in the Truong Son Mountains in Vietnam and Laos. Saola is the extremely endangered species in the wild, which is named in the Red Books of IUCN and Vietnam. Photo: Wikipedia

An adult saola stands at about 80–90 cm at the shoulder with its entire body length measuring approximately 150 cm and weighs at approximately 90–100 kg. Their hair is straight, short, and surprisingly soft for an animal partly adapted to a mountain habitat and is usually of a medium chocolate brown color. Photo: WWF

Cousin to the cow, goat, and antelope, the species was defined following a discovery of remains in 1992 in Vu Quang Nature Reserve by a joint survey of the Ministry of Forestry and the World Wide Fund for Nature. The team found three skulls with unusual long straight horns kept in hunters' houses. In their article, the team proposed "a three month survey to observe the living animal" but, more than 20 years later, there was still no reported sighting of a saola in the wild by a scientist. In the picture is the saola was found in Vietnam in 1992. Photo: AP

According to the WWF, the discovery of saola is the first discovery of a species of a large mammal in the world in over the past 50 years. This is one of important discoveries of animals in the 20th century. Photo: William Robichaud

In Vietnam, the last time a rare individual saola was seen in the wild was in 1998 in the Pu Mat National Park in the central province of Nghe An. Photo: WWF

The images of a saola were recently recorded by cameras of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the Forest Protection Department of Quang Nam Province--installed in a remote area of the Truong Son Mountains. In the photos, a saola was moving along a stream in a small valley on September 7. Photo: WWF

The map of distribution of saola in the remote forests in the Truong Son mountain range on the border of Vietnam - Laos. In Vietnam, saola were found in the provinces of Nghe An, Ha Tinh, Thua Thien Hue and Quang Nam.

Currently the experts cannot accurately assess the number of living saola individuals in the wild. However, they said that this rare species may face threats to habitats and species numbers by poaching since they can be trapped placed by hunters to catch other animals such as deer, wild boars.... Photo: Wikipedia