Rabbits
There are seven different genera in the family classified as rabbits, including the European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus), Cottontail rabbit (genus Sylvilagus; 13 species), and the Amami rabbit (Pentalagus furnessi, endangered species on Amami Ōshima, Japan). There are many other species of rabbit, and these, along with pikas and hares, make up the order Lagomorpha.
Location and habitat
Rabbits are ground dwellers that live in environments ranging from desert to tropical forest and wetland.
Their natural geographic range encompasses the middle latitudes of the Western Hemisphere. In the Eastern Hemisphere rabbits are found in Europe, portions of Central and Southern Africa, the Indian subcontinent, Sumatra, and Japan.
The European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) has been introduced to many locations around the world, and all breeds of domestic rabbit originate from the European.
Characteristics and anatomy
The long ears of rabbits are most likely an adaptation for detecting predators. Each foot has five digits (one reduced); rabbits move about on the tips of the digits in a fashion known as digitigrade locomotion.
Full-bodied and egg-shaped, wild rabbits are rather uniform in body proportions and stance. The smallest is the pygmy rabbit (Brachylagus idahoensis), at only 20 cm in length and 0.4 kg (0.9 pound) in weight, while the largest grow to 50 cm and more than 2 kg.
Exceptions are the black Amami rabbit (Pentalagus furnessi) of Japan and two black-striped species from Southeast Asia. The tail is usually a small puff of fur, generally brownish but white on top in the cottontails (genus Sylvilagus) of North and South America.
Cecal pellets
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. Cecotropes, sometimes called "night feces", come from the cecum and are high in minerals, vitamins and proteins that are necessary to the rabbit's health.
This process allows rabbits to extract the necessary nutrients from their food.
Diet and eating habits
Rabbits are herbivores who feed by grazing on grass, forbs, and leafy weeds. In consequence, their diet contains large amounts of cellulose, which is hard to digest.
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.
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.
These pellets remain intact for up to six hours in the stomach; the bacteria within continue to digest the plant carbohydrates. The soft feces form here and contain up to five times the vitamins of hard feces.
This double-digestion process enables rabbits to use nutrients that they may have missed during the first passage through the gut, and thus ensures that maximum nutrition is derived from the food they eat. This process serves the same purpose within the rabbit as rumination does in cattle and sheep.
Rabbits are incapable of vomiting due to the physiology of their digestive system.
Behavior
A rabbit's side view.
While the European rabbit is the best-known species, it is probably also the least typical, as there is considerable variability in the natural history of rabbits. Nonburrowing rabbits make surface nests called forms, generally under dense protective cover.
The European rabbit occupies open landscapes such as fields, parks, and gardens, although it has colonized habitats from stony deserts to subalpine valleys. Rabbits are active throughout the year; no species is known to hibernate.
Other than loud screams when frightened or caught by a predator, the only auditory signal known for most species is a loud foot thump made to indicate alarm or aggression. Notable exceptions are the Amami rabbit and the volcano rabbit of Mexico, which both utter a variety of calls.
Instead of sound, scent seems to play a predominant role in the communication systems of most rabbits; they possess well-developed glands throughout their body and rub them on fixed objects to convey group identity, sex, age, social and reproductive status, and territory ownership.
If chased by a predator, they engage in quick, irregular movement, designed more to evade and confuse than to outdistance a pursuer. Skeletal adaptations such as long hind limbs and a strengthened pelvic girdle enable their agility and speed (up to 48 km per hour).
Reproduction
Most rabbits produce many offspring each year, although scarcity of resources may cause this potential to be suppressed.
A combination of factors allows the high rates of reproduction commonly associated with rabbits. Rabbits generally are able to breed at a young age, and many regularly conceive litters of up to seven young, often doing so four or five times a year due to the fact that a rabbit's gestation period is only 28 to 31 days. In addition, females exhibit induced ovulation, their ovaries releasing eggs in response to copulation rather than according to a regular cycle.
They can also undergo postpartum estrus, conceiving immediately after a litter has been born.
Newborn rabbits are naked, blind, and helpless at birth (altricial). Mothers are remarkably inattentive to their young and are almost absentee parents, commonly nursing their young only once per day and for just a few minutes.
In contrast, hares are generally born with hair and are able to see (precocial). All rabbits except the cottontail rabbit live underground in burrows or warrens, while hares live in simple nests above the ground (as does the cottontail rabbit), and usually do not live in groups.
Hares are generally larger than rabbits, with longer ears, and have black markings on their fur. Hares have not been domesticated, while rabbits are often kept as house pets.
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. Domestic rabbits that do not live indoors can also often serve as companions for their owners, typically living in an easily accessible hutch outside the home.
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 unlimited Timothy hay, a small amount of pellets, and a small portion of fresh vegetables.
Rabbits are social animals. Rabbits do not make good pets for small children because they do not know how to stay quiet, calm, and gentle around rabbits.
Snares or guns along with dogs are usually employed when catching wild rabbits for food. The flesh is firm and coarse grained and less tender than a fryer.
In Europe, where rabbits are farmed on a large scale, they are protected against myxomatosis and calicivirus with a genetically modified virus. Rabbits in Australia are considered to be such a pest that land owners are legally obliged to control them.
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.
Order Lagomorpha
Family Leporidae
Genus Pentalagus
Amami Rabbit/Ryūkyū Rabbit, Pentalagus furnessi
Genus Bunolagus
Bushman Rabbit, Bunolagus monticularis
Genus Nesolagus
Sumatran Striped Rabbit, Nesolagus netscheri
Annamite Striped Rabbit, Nesolagus timminsi
Genus Romerolagus
Volcano Rabbit, Romerolagus diazi
Genus Brachylagus
Pygmy Rabbit, Brachylagus idahoensis
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
European Rabbit, Oryctolagus cuniculus
Genus Poelagus
Central African Rabbit, Poelagus marjorita
Three other genera in family, regarded as hares, not rabbits
Naming
Rabbits are often known affectionately by the pet name bunny or bunny rabbit, especially when referring to young, domesticated rabbits. 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.
In the folklore of the United States, a rabbit's foot is frequently carried as an amulet, and is often used on keychains, where it is thought to bring luck. A popular culture manifestation of this tradition can be found in the character title character of Sailor Moon, whose name is Usagi Tsukino, a Japanese pun on the words "rabbit of the moon."
In Jewish folklore, rabbits (shfanim) are associated with cowardice.
A Korean myth similar to the Japanese counterpart presents rabbits living on the moon making rice cakes (Tteok in Korean).
In Native American Ojibwe mythology, Nanabozho, or Great Rabbit, is an important deity related to the creation of the world.
In Ugandan folklore, Shufti the rabit was the leader of the peoples when the sun God burnt the crops to the ground after the skull of the golden albatross was left out on the plains on the first day of the year.
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.
cartoon character Bugs Bunny.
Anthropomorphized rabbits have appeared in a host of works of film, literature, and technology, notably the White Rabbit and the March Hare in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland; in the popular novel Watership Down, by Richard Adams (which has also been made into a movie) and in Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit stories.
Rabbits are also the subject of one of the first children's stories The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams, as well as the Little Golden Books story "The Lively LIttle Rabbit". Later revisions of the test allowed technicians to inspect the ovaries without killing the animal.