I see a lot of squirrels while I am walking the trails, but there have been a lot of rabbits with fluffy white tails lately. According to Wikipedia, as of 2017, there were at least 305 breeds of domestic rabbit in 70 countries around the world. There are 13 wild rabbit species, among them the seven types of cottontail. The European rabbit, which has been introduced on every continent except Antarctica, is familiar throughout the world as a wild prey animal and as a domesticated form of livestock and pet. With its widespread effect on ecologies and cultures, the rabbit is, in many areas of the world, a part of daily life — as food, clothing, a companion and a source of artistic inspiration.
Male rabbits are called bucks; females are called does. An older term for an adult rabbit is coney. A term for a young rabbit is bunny, though this term is often applied informally — particularly by children — to rabbits generally, especially domestic ones. More recently, the term kit or kitten has been used to refer to a young rabbit. A group of rabbits is known as a colony or nest or, occasionally, a warren, though this more commonly refers to where the rabbits live. A group of baby rabbits produced from a single mating is referred to as a litter, and a group of domestic rabbits living together is sometimes called a herd. In 2011, the average sleep time of a rabbit in captivity was calculated at 8.4 hours per day. As with other prey animals, rabbits often sleep with their eyes open, so that sudden movements will awaken the rabbit to respond to potential danger.
Differences from hares
Hares are born relatively mature and mobile with hair and good vision, while rabbits are born hairless and blind, and requiring closer care. Hares and cottontail rabbits live a relatively solitary life in a simple nest above the ground, while most rabbits live in social groups in burrows or warrens. Hares are generally larger than rabbits, with ears that are more elongated, and with hind legs that are larger and longer. Hares have not been domesticated, while descendants of the European rabbit are commonly bred as livestock and kept as pets.
Rabbit fur, prized for its softness, can be found in a broad range of coat colors and patterns, as well as lengths. The Angora rabbit breed, for example, was developed for its long, silky fur, which is often hand-spun into yarn. Other domestic rabbit breeds have been developed primarily for the commercial fur trade, including the Rex, which has a short plush coat.
Since speed and agility are a rabbit's main defenses against predators — including the swift fox, rabbits have large hind leg bones and well-developed musculature. Though resting with their toes flat on the ground, rabbits are on their toes while running. They use their strong claws for digging and for defense, along with their teeth. Each front foot has four toes plus a dewclaw, a digit that grows higher on the leg than the rest of the foot. Each hind foot has four toes, but no dewclaw. As a result of the position of the eyes in its skull, the rabbit has a field of vision that encompasses nearly 360 degrees, with just a small blind spot at the bridge of the nose.
Reproduction
The average female rabbit becomes sexually mature at 3 to 8 months of age and can conceive at any time of the year for the duration of her life. However, egg and sperm production can begin to decline after three years. The rabbit gestation period is short and ranges from 28 to 36 days with an average period of 31 days. A longer gestation period will generally yield a smaller litter while shorter gestation periods will give birth to a larger litter. The size of a single litter can range from four to 12 bunnies, allowing a female to deliver up to 60 new babies a year. After birth, the female can become pregnant again as early as the next day.
In some areas, wild rabbits and hares are hunted for their meat, a lean source of high quality protein. In the wild, such hunting is accomplished with the aid of trained falcons, ferrets or dogs, as well as with snares or other traps and rifles. A caught rabbit may be dispatched with a sharp blow to the back of its head, a practice from which the term rabbit punch is derived.
Approximately 1.2 billion rabbits are slaughtered each year for meat worldwide. In 1994, the countries with the highest consumption per capita of rabbit meat were Malta with19.6 lb., Italy with 12.6 lb. and Cyprus with 9.6 lb., falling to 0.066 lb. in Japan. The figure for the United States was 0.31 lb. per capita. The largest producers of rabbit meat in 1994 were China, Russia, Italy, France, and Spain. Rabbit meat was once a common commodity in Sydney, Australia, but declined after the myxomatosis virus was intentionally introduced to control the exploding population of feral rabbits in the area.
In the United Kingdom, fresh rabbit is sold in butcher shops and markets, and some supermarkets sell frozen rabbit meat. At farmers’ markets there — including the famous Borough Market in London — rabbit carcasses are sometimes displayed hanging, unbutchered in the traditional style, next to braces of pheasant or other small game. Rabbit meat is a feature of Moroccan cuisine, where it is cooked in a tajine with raisins and grilled almonds added a few minutes before serving. In China, rabbit meat is particularly popular in Sichuan cuisine, with its stewed rabbit, spicy diced rabbit, BBQ-style rabbit and even spicy rabbit heads, which have been compared to spicy duck neck. Rabbit meat is comparatively unpopular elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific.
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 with few defenses evokes vulnerability and innocence, and in folklore and modern children's stories, rabbits often appear as sympathetic characters, able to connect easily with youth of all kinds, e.g. the Velveteen Rabbit or Thumper in Bambi.
With its reputation as a prolific breeder, the rabbit juxtaposes sexuality with innocence, as in the Playboy Bunny. The rabbit as a swift prey animal is also known for its speed, agility and endurance, symbolized by the marketing icons Energizer Bunny and Duracell Bunny.
The rabbit often appears in folklore as the trickster archetype, as he uses his cunning to outwit his enemies.
· In American popular culture, e.g. Br'er
Rabbit — from African-American folktales and, later, Disney animation — and Bugs
· In Aztec mythology, a pantheon of 400 rabbit gods known as Centzon Totochtin, led by Ometotchtli or Two Rabbit, represented fertility, parties and drunkenness.
· In Central Africa, the common hare or Kalulu, is "inevitably described" as a trickster figure.
· In Chinese folklore, rabbits accompany
Chang'e on the Moon. In the Chinese New Year, the zodiacal rabbit is one of the twelve celestial animals in the Chinese zodiac.
· 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. In
Korean mythology, as in Japanese, rabbits live on the moon making rice.
· In Jewish folklore, rabbits are associated with cowardice, a usage still current in contemporary Israeli spoken Hebrew, similar to the English colloquial use of "chicken" to denote cowardice.
· In Anishinaabe traditional beliefs, held by the Ojibwa 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.
· Buddhism, Christianity, and Judaism have associations with an ancient circular motif called the three rabbits. Its meaning ranges from "peace and tranquility" to purity or the Holy Trinity to Kabbalistic
levels of the soul or to the Jewish
Anthropomorphized rabbits have appeared in film and literature, in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (the White Rabbit and the March Hare characters), in Watership Down and in the Peter Rabbit stories by Beatrix Potter. In the 1920s, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit was a popular cartoon character. In 1950 Harvey was a popular move that featured a 6-foot rabbit and the 1998 movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit showed an animated rabbit interacting with humans.
Below are some of the different species of rabbits.
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