All About Rabbits

 Rabbit, any of the 29 species of long-eared animals in the family Leporidae that do not include hares (genus Lepus).

Often, the terms rabbit and hare are used interchangeably, which can be perplexing. For example, jackrabbits are actually hares, whereas rockhares and hispid hares are rabbits. Rabbits are smaller, have a different life history, and require a different habitat than hares. Rabbits are generally smaller and have shorter ears than hares. They are born without fur and with closed eyes during a 30–31-day gestation period. They favor wooded and shrubby settings, where they dwell in tunnels dug into the soil. Hares, on the other hand, are larger and are born fully mature with fur and open eyes following a gestation period of approximately 42 days. They favor open habitats like as prairies, where they nest in tiny depressions in the ground.

Rabbits are ground-dwelling mammals that inhabit a variety of habitats, from desert to tropical forest and marsh. In the Western Hemisphere, their natural geographic range spans the middle latitudes. Rabbits are distributed throughout the Eastern Hemisphere, including Europe, parts of Central and Southern Africa, the Indian subcontinent, Sumatra, and Japan. The European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) has been brought to numerous countries worldwide, and all domestic rabbit breeds are descended from the European. Nearly half of all rabbit species on the planet are threatened with extinction, and many are among the most fragile of all mammals.

Rabbits' large ears are almost certainly an adaptation for spotting predators. Rabbits have long, muscular hind legs and a short tail in addition to their large ears, which can reach a length of 6 cm (more than 2 inches). Each foot has five digits (one of which is shortened); rabbits travel using the tips of their digits, a technique called digitigrade locomotion. Wild rabbits are large and egg-shaped, with rather regular body proportions and stance. The pygmy rabbit (Brachylagus idahoensis) is the smallest, measuring only 20 cm (7.9 inches) in length and weighing 0.4 kg (0.9 pound), while the largest grow to 50 cm (19.7 inches) in length and weigh more than 2 kg (4.4 pounds). The fur is often long and velvety, with colors of brown, gray, and buff. Exceptions include Japan's black Amami rabbit (Pentalagus furnessi) and two Southeast Asian species with black stripes. The tail is typically a tiny puff of fur that is brownish in color but white on top in North and South American cottontails (genus Sylvilagus).

History of nature

While the European rabbit is the most well-known species, it is also the least typical, as rabbits' natural history is highly variable. Burrows are dug by many rabbits, while cottontails and hispid hares do not. The European rabbit is renowned for its enormous burrow systems, dubbed warrens. Nonburrowing rabbits construct surface nests termed forms, which are typically located behind extensive protective cover. Although it prefers open areas such as fields, parks, and gardens, the European rabbit has colonized habitats ranging from stony deserts to subalpine valleys. It is the most gregarious rabbit, occasionally forming groups of up to 20 individuals in warrens. Even so, social behavior in European rabbits can be extremely adaptable, depending on habitat and other local variables, to the point where the primary social unit is occasionally a territorial breeding pair. The majority of rabbits are rather solitary and occasionally territorial, congregating in small groups only to reproduce or forage. Occasionally, during territorial disputes, rabbits will "box" with their front limbs. Rabbits are active all year; no species has been observed hibernating. Rabbits are nocturnal and quite silent. Apart from loud screams in response to fear or when being pursued by a predator, the only auditory signal known for the majority of species is a loud foot thump used to signify alarm or aggression. The volcanic rabbit (Romerolagus diazi) of Mexico is a unique exception, as it makes a range of calls.

Instead of sound, most rabbits' communication systems appear to be dominated by fragrance; they have well-developed glands distributed throughout their bodies and rub them against stationary objects to express group membership, sex, age, social and reproductive status, and territorial ownership. Additionally, urine is used in chemical communication (see animal communication). When danger is recognized, rabbits generally freeze and seek cover. When pursued by a predator, they move quickly and irregularly in order to dodge and confuse the pursuer rather than outrun it. Their agility and speed are facilitated by skeletal modifications including as lengthened hind limbs and a reinforced pelvic girdle (up to 80 km [50 miles] per hour).

Rabbits must ingest a huge amount of plant material to maintain optimum nutrition, which results in their enormous digestive tracts. Their food, which is mostly comprised of grasses and forbs (herbs other than grasses), is high in cellulose, which is difficult to digest. Rabbits handle this difficulty by excreting two separate forms of feces: hard droppings and soft black viscous pellets that are promptly consumed (see coprophagy). The big cecum, a supplementary chamber between the large and small intestines, collects chewed plant material. It contains a significant number of symbiotic bacteria that aid in the digestion of cellulose and also create specific B vitamins. Here, soft feces form and contain up to five times the amount of vitamins found in hard feces. They are consumed by the rabbit and redigested in a particular area of the stomach after being ejected. This repeat digestion process helps rabbits to absorb nutrients that may have been overlooked during the initial passage through the gut, ensuring that the food they ingest has the maximum amount of nourishment.

Most rabbits generate a large number of offspring (kittens) each year, although food shortages may limit this ability. A number of variables contribute to the high reproductive rates associated with rabbits. Rabbits can reproduce at an early age, and many regularly produce litters of up to seven young, frequently four or five times a year. Additionally, females (does) experience induced ovulation, in which their ovaries release eggs in reaction to copulation, rather than on a regular cycle. They can also have postpartum estrus, conceiving promptly following the birth of a litter.

At birth, newborn rabbits are naked, blind, and helpless (altricial). Mothers are extremely indifferent to their infants and are essentially absentee parents, nursing their infants only once a day and for only a few minutes. To compensate for this lack of care, rabbit milk is extremely nutritious and ranks among the richest of all mammalian milks. The babies develop swiftly, and the majority are weaned within a month. Males (bucks) are not involved in the upbringing of kittens.

Rabbits, both wild and farmed, are economically significant to humans. Lagomorphs in the wild are popular among hunters for sport, food, and fur. Rabbit meat, renowned for its delicate flavor, continues to be a significant source of protein in a wide variety of cultures. Domestic rabbits are kept for meat and their skins, which are used to make pelts and felt.

The exact date of rabbit domestication is debatable. Since the Pleistocene Epoch, fossil and archaeological evidence indicates that wild rabbits have been killed for meat and fur (2.6 million years to 11,700 years ago). The earliest historical mention of rabbits being maintained as livestock dates all the way back to the first century BCE, in the writings of Roman playwright and satire Marcus Terentius Varro. Additionally, fossil records and other data indicate that rabbits were transported by ship to various Mediterranean islands (such as the Balearic Islands by the 14th century BCE, Malta by the 3rd century CE, and the islands of the eastern Mediterranean by the Middle Ages). A comparison of the genomes (the complete set of chromosomes and their genes) of domesticated European rabbits and their wild counterparts in France indicates that the two groups became effectively isolated between 17,700 and 12,200 years ago, possibly as a result of the retreat of continental ice sheets and mountain glaciers in southwestern Europe at the time. The combination of fossil and literary sources, as well as DNA studies, indicates that rabbit domestication occurred in southwestern Europe between the retreat of the ice sheets and the 1st century BCE. Domestication of rabbits is believed to have taken hundreds, if not thousands, of years, as it was the result of a combination of natural and human-driven causes functioning in concert, rather than a single distinct occurrence. Nonetheless, a famous but erroneous claim continues that European rabbits became domesticated around 600 CE when monks from southern France bred them for meat since the Roman Catholic Church allegedly permitted the consumption of young rabbit flesh during Lent.

Today, there are around 50 established strains of domestic rabbits, all of which were developed by selective breeding from this single species. Domestic rabbits make excellent and relatively low-maintenance pets due to their appealing look and calm demeanor. Rabbits are especially useful as laboratory animals for medical and scientific research due to their ease of raising in captivity. Rabbits, on the other hand, may carry and transmit diseases to people such as tularemia or rabbit fever.