Rabbits

Any of the 29 species of long-eared mammals in the Leporidae family, except hares (genus Lepus), are referred to as rabbits. The genus Sylvilagus is where cottontail rabbits from the New World are categorized. It can be confusing when “rabbit” and “hare” are used interchangeably. For example, jackrabbits are hares, but rock hares and hispid hares are rabbits. Regarding size, life cycle, and preferred environment, rabbits are different from hares.

Difference between hare and rabbit

Compared to hares, rabbits are typically smaller and have shorter ears. After a gestation period of thirty to thirty-one days, they are born without fur and with closed eyes. They live in burrows buried in the ground and like environments of trees and plants. In comparison, hares are larger animals that undergo a gestation period of approximately 42 days, during which they are born fully formed, with fur and open eyes. They build their nests in shallow, exposed depressions in open spaces like prairies.

Preservation status

Rabbits are ground animals that inhabit various habitats, including wetlands, tropical forests, and deserts. The middle latitudes of the Western Hemisphere are part of their natural geographic distribution. Rabbits in Europe, Central and Southern Africa, Sumatra, the Indian subcontinent, and Japan in the Eastern Hemisphere. All domestic rabbit breeds are descended from the European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus), which has been brought to many parts of the world. Several of the most endangered mammal species, including over half of the world’s rabbit species, are in danger of going extinct. Rabbits’ large ears are perhaps an adaptation to help them identify predators.

Rabbits have erect ears that can grow up to 6 cm (over 2 inches), long, muscular hind legs, and a short tail. Digitigrade locomotion is how rabbits walk about on the tips of their five (one decreased) digits on each foot. Wild rabbits are large, egg-shaped animals with similar body proportions and attitudes. The enormous rabbits reach 50 cm (19.7 inches) in length and weigh more than 2 kg (4.4 pounds), while the smallest, the pygmy rabbit (Brachylagus idahoensis), is just 20 cm (7.9 inches) long and 0.4 kilograms (0.9 pounds). The fur is often long, soft, and colored in buff, gray, and brown tones. Two black-striped species from Southeast Asia and the black Amami rabbit (Pentalagus furnessi) of Japan are the exceptions. In cottontails (genus Sylvilagus) of North and South America, the tail is typically a little puff of fur that is blackish underneath and white above.

Evoulution

Although the European rabbit is the most well-known species, its natural history is remarkably variable, making it likely the least typical. While hispid hares and cottontails do not dig burrows, many rabbits do. The largest burrow networks, known as warrens, are built by European rabbits. Rabbits that do not dig create surface nests known as forms, usually beneath thick foliage for protection. The habitats that the European rabbit has inhabited range from stony deserts to subalpine slopes, but it is most commonly found in open spaces like fields, parks, and gardens. Being the most gregarious rabbit, it occasionally forms groups in warrens with up to 20 members.

Nonetheless, social behavior in European rabbits can still be highly variable, contingent on environmental factors and other local conditions; in certain instances, a territorial breeding pair serves as the main social unit. Most rabbits are somewhat lonesome and occasionally territorial; they only gather in small groups to reproduce or go foraging. Rabbits may use their front limbs to “box” during territorial disputes. All year, rabbits remain active; no species is known to hibernate. In addition to being primarily nocturnal, rabbits are also relatively quiet. For most animals, the sole known aural cue is a loud foot thump meant to convey alarm or aggression, aside from screams when scared or caught by a predator.

Classifications

Since its fossil record became well-documented some 40 million years ago, during the Eocene Epoch, the family Leporidae (rabbits and hares) has remained mostly constant. By then, rabbits had made their way to North America, where they spent the majority of their evolutionary history. Their current range resulted from their reestablishment in Asia and their migration into Europe by around seven million years ago, during the Miocene Epoch. The only other family in the order Lagomorpha, the Ochotonidae (the pikas), is readily distinguished from the Leporidae family. Morphologically speaking, the higher-arched skulls of rabbits and hares are associated with the development of bounding locomotion and a relatively upright head posture. There is also evidence of elongation of the limbs, a strengthened pelvic girdle, and more muscular hind limbs.

Common disease

Rabbits can, however, also harbor and spread diseases like tularemia or rabbit fever to people.

Rabbits (and hares) play a significant role in many terrestrial food chains due to their regular local abundance. Numerous mammals and birds that depend on them as a main source of food prey on them. Among them are owls, bobcats, wolves, foxes, weasels, hawks, and eagles. In certain situations, rabbits are regarded as pests because of their significant impact on both native and domesticated plants. There have been extreme cases where the introduction of the European rabbit has occurred.

After being brought to Australia in 1859, wild European rabbits quickly caused significant damage to agriculture. As a result, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a number of mostly ineffective rabbit-proof fences were built to prevent rabbits from the eastern parts of Australia from invading the western regions.

The southern half of the continent had been plagued in 60 years due to the extraordinary early rates of spread (up to 350 km [220 miles] each year), which caused extensive damage to crops and declines—even extinctions—of native Australian flora and fauna. Most of the attempts to subdue the rabbit have been unsuccessful. For example, it was discovered that European rabbits could not survive the viral disease myxomatosis, which is naturally present in some South American cottontails. The virus was first found in Australia in the early 1950s. While the first wave of infection killed almost all of the country’s rabbit population (99 percent), later rounds of infection were less successful because the rabbits rapidly gained immunity and the virus grew less virulent. In addition to poisoning, fumigation, hunting, and warren destruction, ongoing research in Australia is still looking for biological methods (such as introducing rabbit hemorrhagic disease and other diseases and parasites) to manage the rabbit population.

Domestics pet

The current domestic rabbit strains—more than fifty—have been carefully cultivated from this single species. Domestic rabbits are generally low-maintenance pets due to their charming look and peaceful demeanor. Due to their ease of raising in captivity, rabbits are crucial laboratory animals for research purposes in both medicine.

Research indicates that the domestication of rabbits may have taken hundreds or even thousands of years, as it relied on many interrelated natural and human-induced causes rather than a single isolated incident. However, a widely held but unfounded myth states that European rabbits were domesticated in 600 CE when monks in southern France bred them for meat, allegedly because the Roman Catholic Church permitted the consumption of young rabbit flesh during Lent. People value rabbits economically, both domestic and wild. Hunters like to hunt wild lagomorphs for sport as well as for food and fur. The delicate flavor of rabbit meat makes it a valuable protein source in many cultures. Domestic rabbits are raised for their meat and their skins, which are used to make felt and as pelts.

There is disagreement over when rabbits were first domesticated. Since the Pleistocene Epoch (2.6 million to 11,700 years ago), wild rabbits have likely been killed for meat and furs, according to fossil and archeological evidence. In the first century BCE, Roman playwright and satirist Marcus Terentius Varro wrote some of the earliest known accounts of rabbits maintained as livestock.

 

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