Talk:Alicorns/@comment-10390252-20130624192141

This is purely a speculative guess, but I suspect that the 'winged unicorns' (or demi-alicorns, if you want to be posh about it) are the foals of mixed unicorn/pegasi matings. Usually, either the wings or horns will be non-functional throwbacks or, if they are functional, are only so at a very lower power level (a similar process might explain why Scootaloo's wings are only partially functional, if she is an earth pony with some pegasi blood in her ancestry).

A true alicorn has the features of all the three terrestrial pony tribes but to a degree greater than the strongest of those races can achieve.