In ancient times people used to have spirit animals. Individuals had their own spirit animals, as well there were animals that represented the spirit of the tribe. There were animals that represented wisdom, strength, speed and other good qualities humans could have. This tradition is still kept to the modern days.
The tribal villages have grown into powerful and influential nations, whose spirit is still represented with animals. Italy shows its spirit with wolf as their national animal. For Russia it is the brown bear. United States has the bald eagle as their national animal. However, not all countries choose to represent themselves with animals that are strong or powerful. Some are more humble like a little brown bird palm chat for the Dominican Republic or European rabbit and wood mouse for Monaco. There are some that are outright strange too, like the ones in the following list.
5. Gallic Rooster – France
Gallic rooster is the national animal of France because in Latin rooster (gallus) and Gaul (Gallus) are homonyms. It became the symbol of France during the French Revolution, when the republicans denied the royalist and Christian origin of the country and traced it back to the early inhabitants of France, Gauls. The history is clear, although Gauls themselves never associated with the bird itself. However, it is quite unclear why French take pride in a big chicken as their national symbol…
4. Barbary Lion – Libya and Morocco
It might seem unusual why is this lion in the list of the strangest national animals. The reason for this is, because Barbary lion, also known as Atlas lion, became instinct in 1922. It is a strange choice to represent your country with an animal that doesn’t exist anymore. However, to be fair, Barbary lions used to be the biggest and heaviest of lion subspecies in the world. It is also very likely that the genes of Barbary lions were passed to the current generations of lions of another species.
3. Dodo – Mauritius
Representing the character of your country with a dead lion is strange, but could be understood. Why would anyone choose to represent their country with a flightless bird that nowadays is almost a synonym to the word “extinct”? Dodos used to live in an environment free of natural predators, so when humans first approached the island of Mauritius, they were fearless. Since these birds couldn’t fly, they became an easy prey and over few centuries were hunted till extinction. Maybe announcing dodo as their national animal is the only way how people inhabiting this island can still honor the bird.
2. Dragon – Wales, China, Vietnam
Dragons are notorious for their strength, wisdom, fire breathing, ability and, hmm, greed and the fact that they don’t exist and have never existed as they are portrayed in folklore and literature. Dragons are usually portrayed as huge serpents or reptiles often with wings. They might have been inspired by crocodiles. Sometimes skeletons of whales or even dinosaur fossil findings could be the source for the myths of dragons. Well, although dragons are not real, at least they are big, impressive and powerful unlike the next entry in this list.
1. Unicorn – Scotland
Unicorn in folklore is depicted as white horse-like or goat-like animal with a single horn projecting out of its forehead. It was believed that its horn had the power to make poisoned water pure again and heal all sickness. So far, so good. However, the legends also told that only young virgins could tame them. There were plenty of greedy people in medieval times and renaissance, who had set their goals to hunt for the unicorn, especially if there was a one horned deer or similar animal seen in the woods. That resulted of entrapment of young, innocent women.
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