Habitat and range
Outdoor entrance to a rabbit burrow
The European rabbit has been introduced to many places around the world.
[2]
Biology
A skin-skeletal preparation showing its incisors
Evolution
Because the rabbit's
epiglottis is engaged over the soft palate except when swallowing, the rabbit is an
obligate nasal breather. Rabbits have two sets of incisor teeth, one behind the other. This way they can be distinguished from
rodents, with which they are often confused.
[3] Carl Linnaeus originally grouped rabbits and rodents under the class
Glires; later, they were separated as the scientific consensus is that many of their similarities were a result of
convergent evolution. However, recent DNA analysis and the discovery of a common ancestor has supported the view that they share a common lineage, and thus rabbits and rodents are now often referred to together as members of the superorder Glires.
[4]
Morphology
Video of a European rabbit, showing ears twitching and a jump
The rabbit's long ears, which can be more than 10 cm (4 in) long, are probably an adaptation for detecting
predators. They have large, powerful hind legs. The two front paws have 5 toes, the extra called the dewclaw. The hind feet have 4 toes.
[5] They are
plantigrade animals while at rest; however, they move around on their toes while running, assuming a more
digitigrade form. Wild rabbits do not differ much in their body proportions or stance, with full, egg-shaped bodies. Their size can range anywhere from 20 cm (8 in) in length and 0.4 kg in weight to 50 cm (20 in) and more than 2 kg. The fur is most commonly long and soft, with colors such as shades of
brown,
gray, and
buff. The tail is a little plume of brownish fur (white on top for
cottontails).
[2] Rabbits can see nearly 360 degrees, with a small blind spot at the bridge of the nose.
[6]
Ecology
Rabbits are
hindgut digesters. This means that most of their digestion takes place in their
large intestine and
cecum. In rabbits the cecum is about 10 times bigger than the stomach and it along with the large intestine makes up roughly 40% of the rabbit's digestive tract.
[7] The unique musculature of the cecum allows the intestinal tract of the rabbit to separate fibrous material from more digestible material; the fibrous material is passed as feces, while the more nutritious material is encased in a mucous lining as a
cecotrope. Cecotropes, sometimes called "night feces", are high in
minerals,
vitamins and
proteins that are necessary to the rabbit's health. Rabbits eat these to meet their nutritional requirements; the mucous coating allows the nutrients to pass through the acidic stomach for digestion in the intestines. This process allows rabbits to extract the necessary nutrients from their food.
[8]
Rabbits are prey animals and are therefore constantly aware of their surroundings. For instances, in Mediterranean Europe, rabbits are the main prey of red foxes, badgers, and Iberian lynxes.
[9] If confronted by a potential threat, a rabbit may freeze and observe then warn others in the warren with powerful thumps on the ground. Rabbits have a remarkably wide field of vision, and a good deal of it is devoted to overhead scanning.
[10] They survive predation by burrowing, hopping away in a zig-zag motion, and, if captured, delivering powerful kicks with their hind legs. Their strong teeth allow them to eat and to bite in order to escape a struggle.
[11]
Sleep
Rabbits are
crepuscular, most active at dawn and dusk. The average sleep time of a rabbit in captivity is said to be 8.4 hours.
[12] As with other
prey animals, rabbits often sleep with their eyes open so sudden movements will wake the rabbit and alert it to dangers.
[13]
Lifespan
A litter of rabbit kits (baby rabbits)
A nest containing baby rabbits
The expected rabbit lifespan is about 9–12 years;
[14][15] the world's oldest rabbit on record lived 18 years.
[16]
Diet and eating habits
A young rabbit looking through the grass.
Rabbits are
herbivores that feed by grazing on
grass,
forbs, and leafy weeds. In consequence, their diet contains large amounts of
cellulose, which is hard to digest. Rabbits solve this problem via a form of
hindgut fermentation. They pass two distinct types of feces: hard droppings and soft black viscous pellets, the latter of which are known as
caecotrophs and are immediately eaten (a behaviour known as
coprophagy). Rabbits reingest their own droppings (rather than
chewing the cud as do cows and many other herbivores) to digest their food further and extract sufficient nutrients.
[17]
Rabbits graze heavily and rapidly for roughly the first half hour of a grazing period (usually in the late afternoon), followed by about half an hour of more selective feeding. In this time, the rabbit will also excrete many hard fecal pellets, being waste pellets that will not be reingested. If the environment is relatively non-threatening, the rabbit will remain outdoors for many hours, grazing at intervals. While out of the burrow, the rabbit will occasionally reingest its soft, partially digested pellets; this is rarely observed, since the pellets are reingested as they are produced. Reingestion is most common within the burrow between 8 o'clock in the morning and 5 o'clock in the evening, being carried out intermittently within that period.
Hard pellets are made up of hay-like fragments of plant cuticle and stalk, being the final waste product after redigestion of soft pellets. These are only released outside the burrow and are not reingested. Soft pellets are usually produced several hours after grazing, after the hard pellets have all been excreted. They are made up of micro-organisms and undigested plant cell walls.
The chewed plant material collects in the large cecum, a secondary chamber between the large and small intestine containing large quantities of symbiotic bacteria that help with the digestion of cellulose and also produce certain B vitamins. The pellets are about 56% bacteria by dry weight, largely accounting for the pellets being 24.4% protein on average. The soft feces form here and contain up to five times the vitamins of hard feces. After being excreted, they are eaten whole by the rabbit and redigested in a special part of the stomach. The pellets remain intact for up to six hours in the stomach; the bacteria within continue to digest the plant carbohydrates. This double-digestion process enables rabbits to use nutrients that they may have missed during the first passage through the gut, as well as the nutrients formed by the microbial activity and thus ensures that maximum nutrition is derived from the food they eat.
[2] This process serves the same purpose within the rabbit as
rumination does in cattle and sheep.
[18]
Rabbit diseases
Rabbits and hares are almost never found to be infected with rabies and have not been known to transmit rabies to humans.
[21]
Differences from hares
The most obvious difference between rabbits and hares is how their kits are born. Rabbits are
altricial, having young that are born blind and hairless. In contrast, hares are
precocial, born with hair and good vision. All rabbits except
cottontail rabbits live underground in
burrows or warrens, while hares live in simple nests above the ground (as do cottontail rabbits), and usually do not live in groups. Hares are generally larger than rabbits, with longer ears, larger and longer hind legs and have black markings on their fur. Hares have not been
domesticated, while
European rabbits are both raised for meat and kept as pets.
As pets
Rabbit in the snow
Domestic rabbits can be kept as pets in a back yard hutch or indoors in a cage or house trained to have free roam. Rabbits kept indoors are often referred to as house rabbits. House rabbits typically have an indoor pen or cage and a rabbit-safe place to run and exercise, such as an exercise pen, living room or family room. Rabbits can be trained to use a litter box and some can learn to come when called. Domestic rabbits that do not live indoors can also serve as companions for their owners, typically living in a protected hutch outdoors. Some pet rabbits live in runs/arks during the day for the benefit of fresh air and natural daylight and are brought inside at night.
Whether indoor or outdoor, pet rabbits' pens should be equipped with enrichment activities such as shelves, tunnels, balls, and other toys. Pet rabbits are often provided additional space in which to get exercise, simulating the open space a rabbit would traverse in the wild. Exercise pens or lawn pens are often used to provide a safe place for rabbits to run.
A pet rabbit's diet typically consists of
timothy-grass or other hay, a small amount of pellets, and a fair quantity of fresh vegetables. They also need unrestricted access to fresh clean water. Rabbits are social animals. Rabbits as pets can find their companionship with a variety of creatures, including humans, other rabbits, birds,
chinchillas,
guinea pigs, and sometimes even
cats and
dogs (however they require supervision when with dogs and cats, as they might be preyed upon or attacked by these animals). As prey animals, rabbits are alert, timid creatures that startle fairly easily. They have fragile bones, especially in their backs, that require support on the belly and bottom when picked up. Therefore, rabbits do
notmake good pets for younger children. Older children and teenagers usually have the maturity required to care for a rabbit.
[24]
Aggression
Rabbits may grunt, lunge and even bite or scratch. Usually they do not bite hard enough to break skin. Rabbits become aggressive when they feel threatened or are cornered. The House Rabbit Society says that the owner of the pet needs to win its trust, with certain behavioral tools.
[25]
As food and clothing
Rabbit meat sold commercially
Tanned rabbit pelt; rabbit pelt is prized for its softness.
Leporids such as European rabbits and
hares are a food meat in Europe, China, South America, North America, some parts of the Middle East. By some estimates, world's annual rabbit meat production stands at around 200 million tons.
[26]
Rabbit is still sold in UK butchers and markets, and some supermarkets sell frozen rabbit meat. Additionally, some have begun selling fresh rabbit meat alongside other types of game. At farmers markets and the famous
Borough Market in London, rabbits will be displayed dead and hanging unbutchered in the traditional style next to braces of
pheasant and other small game. Rabbit meat was once commonly sold in
Sydney, Australia, the sellers of which giving the name to the
rugby league team the
South Sydney Rabbitohs, but quickly became unpopular after the disease
myxomatosis was introduced in an attempt to wipe out the feral rabbit population (see also
Rabbits in Australia). Rabbit meat is also commonly used in Moroccan cuisine, where it is cooked in a
tajine with "raisins and grilled almonds added a few minutes before serving".
[27]
In China, rabbit meat is particularly popular in
Sichuan cuisine. Among popular dishes are stewed rabbit, spicy diced rabbit, BBQ-style rabbit, and even spicy rabbit heads, which have been compared to the
duck neck.
[26] Rabbit meat is comparably unpopular elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific.
When used for food, rabbits are both hunted and bred for meat.
Snares or
guns are usually employed when catching wild rabbits for food. In many regions, rabbits are also bred for meat, a practice called
cuniculture. Rabbits can then be killed by hitting the back of their heads, a practice from which the term
rabbit punch is derived. Rabbit meat is a source of high quality protein.
[28] It can be used in most ways chicken meat is used. In fact, well-known chef
Mark Bittman says that domesticated rabbit
tastes like chicken because both are blank palettes upon which any desired flavors can be layered.
[29] Rabbit meat is leaner than beef, pork, and chicken meat. Rabbit products are generally labeled in three ways, the first being Fryer. This is a young rabbit between 2.0 and 2.3 kilograms (4.5 and 5 lb) and up to 9 weeks in age.
[30] This type of meat is tender and fine grained. The next product is a Roaster; they are usually over 2.3 kilograms (5 lb) and up to 8 months in age. The flesh is firm and coarse grained and less tender than a fryer. Then there are giblets which include the liver and heart. One of the most common types of rabbit to be bred for meat is
New Zealand white rabbit.
Rabbit
pelts are sometimes used for clothing and accessories, such as scarves or hats.
Angora rabbits are bred for their
long, fine hair, which can be sheared and harvested like
sheepwool. Rabbits are very good producers of manure; additionally, their urine, being high in nitrogen, makes lemon trees very productive. Their milk may also be of great medicinal or nutritional benefit due to its high protein content.
[32]
Environmental problems
Rabbits have been a source of environmental problems when introduced into the wild by humans. As a result of their appetites, and the rate at which they breed,
feral rabbit depredation can be problematic for agriculture.
Gassing,
barriers (fences), shooting, snaring, and
ferreting have been used to control rabbit populations, but the most effective measures are diseases such as
myxomatosis (myxo or mixi, colloquially) and
calicivirus. In Europe, where rabbits are farmed on a large scale, they are protected against myxomatosis and calicivirus with a
genetically modified virus. The virus was developed in Spain, and is beneficial to rabbit farmers. If it were to make its way into wild populations in areas such as Australia, it could create a population boom, as those diseases are the most serious threats to rabbit survival. Rabbits in Australia and New Zealand are considered to be such a pest that land owners are legally obliged to control them.
[33][34]
Domestic rabbits introduced into a new area, rabbits can overpopulate rapidly, becoming a nuisance, as on this university campus
In culture and literature
Rabbits are often used as a symbol of
fertility or rebirth, and have long been associated with
spring and
Easter as the
Easter Bunny. The species' role as a prey animal also lends itself as a symbol of innocence, another Easter connotation.
Additionally, rabbits are often used as symbols of playful
sexuality, which also relates to the human perception of innocence, as well as its reputation as a prolific breeder.
Folklore and mythology
The rabbit often appears in folklore as the
trickster archetype, as he uses his cunning to outwit his enemies.
- In Aztec mythology, a pantheon of four hundred rabbit gods known as Centzon Totochtin, led by Ometotchtli or Two Rabbit, represented fertility, parties, and drunkenness.
- In Central Africa, the common hare (Kalulu), is "inevitably described" as a trickster figure.[35]
- In Chinese folklore, rabbits accompany Chang'e on the Moon. Also associated with the Chinese New Year (or Lunar New Year), rabbits are also one of the twelve celestial animals in the Chinese Zodiac for the Chinese calendar. It is interesting to note that the Vietnamese lunar new year replaced the rabbit with a cat in their calendar, as rabbits did not inhabit Vietnam.
- A rabbit's foot is carried as an amulet believed to bring good luck. This is found in many parts of the world, and with the earliest use being in Europe around 600 B.C.[36]
- In Japanese tradition, rabbits live on the Moon where they make mochi, the popular snack of mashed sticky rice. This comes from interpreting the pattern of dark patches on the moon as a rabbit standing on tiptoes on the left pounding on an usu, a Japanese mortar (See also: Moon rabbit).
- In Jewish folklore, rabbits (shfanim שפנים) are associated with cowardice, a usage still current in contemporary Israeli spoken Hebrew (similar to English colloquial use of "chicken" to denote cowardice).
- In Korean mythology, like in Japanese, presents rabbits living on the moon making rice cakes (Tteok in Korean).
- In Anishinaabe traditional beliefs, held by the Ojibwe and some other Native American peoples, Nanabozho, or Great Rabbit, is an important deity related to the creation of the world.
- A Vietnamese mythological story portrays the rabbit of innocence and youthfulness. The Gods of the myth are shown to be hunting and killing rabbits to show off their power.
On the
Isle of Portland in Dorset, UK, the rabbit is said to be unlucky and speaking its name can cause upset with older residents. This is thought to date back to early times in the quarrying industry, where piles of extracted stone (not fit for sale) were built into tall rough walls (to save space) directly behind the working quarry face; the rabbit's natural tendency to burrow would weaken these "walls" and cause collapse, often resulting in injuries or even death. The name rabbit is often substituted with words such as “long ears” or “underground mutton”, so as not to have to say the actual word and bring bad luck to oneself. It is said that a public house (on the island) can be cleared of people by calling out the word rabbit and while this was very true in the past, it has gradually become more fable than fact over the past 50 years. See also
Three hares.
Other fictional rabbits
Urban legends
It was commonly believed that
pregnancy tests were based on the idea that a rabbit would die if injected with a
pregnant woman's
urine. This is not true. However, in the 1920s it was discovered that if the urine contained the
hCG, a hormone found in the bodies of pregnant women, the rabbit would display ovarian changes. The rabbit would then be killed to have its
ovaries inspected, but the death of the rabbit was not the indicator of the results. Later revisions of the
test allowed technicians to inspect the ovaries without killing the animal. A similar test involved injecting
Xenopus frogs to make them lay eggs, but animal tests for pregnancy have been made obsolete by faster, cheaper, and simpler modern methods.
A black rabbit
Classifications
Rabbits and hares were formerly classified in the order
Rodentia (rodent) until 1912, when they were moved into a new order
Lagomorpha. This order also includes
pikas.
- Family Leporidae
- Genus Pentalagus
- Genus Bunolagus
- Genus Nesolagus
- Genus Romerolagus
- Genus Brachylagus
- Genus Sylvilagus
- Forest Rabbit, Sylvilagus brasiliensis
- Dice's Cottontail, Sylvilagus dicei
- Brush Rabbit, Sylvilagus bachmani
- San Jose Brush Rabbit, Sylvilagus mansuetus
- Swamp Rabbit, Sylvilagus aquaticus
- Marsh Rabbit, Sylvilagus palustris
- Eastern Cottontail, Sylvilagus floridanus
- New England Cottontail, Sylvilagus transitionalis
- Mountain Cottontail, Sylvilagus nuttallii
- Desert Cottontail, Sylvilagus audubonii
- Omilteme Cottontail, Sylvilagus insonus
- Mexican Cottontail, Sylvilagus cunicularis
- Tres Marias Rabbit, Sylvilagus graysoni
- Genus Oryctolagus
- Genus Poelagus
- Three other genera in family, regarded as hares, not rabbits
See also
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