..... Click the link for more information. and the pika pika , short-haired mammal related to rabbits and hares, also called mouse hare and rock rabbit. Pikas live above the timber line in the mountains of N Asia and W North America.
..... Click the link for more information. . Rabbits and hares have large front teeth, short tails, and large hind legs and feet adapted for running or jumping. In most, the length of the ears is considerably greater than the width. Although usage varies, the term rabbit generally refers to small, running animals, with relatively short ears and legs, which give birth to blind, naked young, while hare refers to larger, hopping forms, with longer ears and legs, whose young are born furred and open-eyed. Rabbits are chiefly nocturnal, although they are sometimes seen in the daytime. They have acute senses of smell and hearing. They feed on a wide variety of vegetation and are responsible in many areas for the stunted nature of the ground cover. When feeding on green herbage, rabbits, like hares, excrete soft pellets which they reingest; the waste products of the redigested food are excreted as dry pellets. Wild rabbits are frequently infected with tularemia tularemia or rabbit fever, acute, infectious disease caused by Francisella tularensis (Pasteurella tularensis). The greatest incidence is among people who handle infected wild rabbits.
..... Click the link for more information. , which is dangerous to humans.
The European Common Rabbit
The European common rabbit, Oryctolagus cuniculus, is native to S Europe and Africa, but is now found, in its domestic varieties, throughout the world; wild varieties have also been introduced in some places, such as England. All domestic rabbits, including the so-called Belgian hare, belong to this species. Wild common rabbits are up to 16 in. (41 cm) long and usually weigh 2 to 3 lb (0.9–1.4 kg). They have soft, thick fur, usually grayish brown above and white below. The tail is usually carried upright when the animal runs, exposing the white undersurface. Common rabbits live in elaborate systems of adjoining burrows called warrens. The young are suckled in a special burrow, dug by the mother at a distance from the warren and lined with a nest of her own fur. The entrance to this burrow is plugged with earth when she is away. Domestic rabbits, which may be various colors but are commonly white, are bred for food and for their fur, which is much used in making fur trim and felt. They are also frequently used as laboratory animals and are kept as pets.
New World Rabbits
The New World genus Sylvilagus includes the many species of cottontail rabbit cottontail rabbit, animal of the order Lagomorpha, which includes the hares and rabbits, except for the domestic, or European, rabbit, which is in a separate species.
..... Click the link for more information. , which resemble the European rabbit in appearance, as well as the marsh rabbit and swamp rabbit (Sylvilagus palustris and S. aquaticus, respectively), of the S United States. These rabbits do not burrow, although in winter they may shelter in a burrow abandoned by another animal. They usually rest, like hares, in hollows which they make in the ground or in vegetation. The Idaho pygmy rabbit, Brachylagus idahoensis, of the U.S. Great Basin, digs simple burrows. The many North American species called jackrabbit jackrabbit, popular name for several hares of W North America, characterized by very long legs and ears. Jackrabbits are powerful jumpers and fast runners. In normal progress leaps are alternated with running steps; when pursued the hare runs fast and close to the
..... Click the link for more information. are actually hares, as is the snowshoe rabbit, or varying hare varying hare, any of several medium-sized hares, sometimes known as snowshoe rabbits, having white fur in winter and turning brownish in summer. They are 18 to 19 in. (45–48 cm) long and have very large back feet and relatively small ears for hares.
..... Click the link for more information. . There are several species of short-eared rabbits in Asia and one, the volcano rabbit, or Mexican pygmy rabbit (Romerolagus diazi), in central Mexico, where it is in danger of extinction.
Reproduction
The reproductive rate of rabbits is notorious. The common rabbit breeds from February to October; its gestation period is 30 days and there are five to eight young in a litter. In most regions its numbers are kept down by its many predators, such as the fox, the badger, and birds of prey. However, when domestic rabbits escaped in Australia, where they had few natural enemies, they ran rampant and stripped the countryside of vegetation in many regions. They were brought partially under control by the artificial introduction of a viral disease, myxomatosis.
Classification
Rabbits are classified in the phylum Chordata Chordata , phylum of animals having a notochord, or dorsal stiffening rod, as the chief internal skeletal support at some stage of their development. Most chordates are vertebrates (animals with backbones), but the phylum also includes some small marine invertebrate
..... Click the link for more information. , subphylum Vertebrata, class Mammalia, order Lagomorpha, family Leporidae.
rabbit
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rabbit
rabbit [′rab·ət]
Rabbit
(domestic rabbit), a mammal of the family Leporidae, order Lagomorpha.
The ancestor of the domestic rabbit, the wild, Common European, or Old World, rabbit (Oryctolagus), was the forerunner of numerous breeds. The domestic rabbit is distinguished by early maturation, fertility, and intensive growth. It is raised for meat, fur, and down. The rabbit can reproduce year round, and the does reach puberty by the age of three or four months. The gestation period lasts from 28 to 32 days. A female can have from three to six litters a year, with six to eight (sometimes as many as 15 or more) young per litter. Newborn rabbits weigh 60–70 g, and after a month (at weaning) they weigh nine or ten times that much. A breeding rabbit is weaned at 45 days, at a live-weight of 800–900 g. Fast-maturing breeds are killed for meat and fur at 65–70 days, at a weight of 1.8–2 kg; later-maturing breeds, at 90–110 days, at 2.8-4 kg. The lifespan of the domestic rabbit is from seven to ten years; its period of economic value lasts two or three years.
The basic foods for the domestic rabbit are green grass, forage root plants, carrot and cabbage silage, small-stalked hay, grain, grain siftings, mixed fodder, other concentrated feeds, and bone and fish meal; mineral supplements include bone meal, table salt, and chalk. Homestead rabbit breeding makes use of fresh food waste, the rabbits being fed according to scientifically developed norms and rations. The best rabbit fur is obtained in fall and winter, after shedding. Rabbit meat is of nutritional value. The killed weight of a fattened rabbit depends on its size and nutritional condition and constitutes 47–60 percent of the liveweight.
About 60 breeds of rabbits are raised in the world. They are subdivided, according to the nature of the coat, into fur breeds and down breeds. In the USSR, the standard-haired (with hair of 2.5–4 cm) and short-haired (with hair of 1.5–2 cm) fur breeds are the most common. The breeds are classified, according to average weight, as large (more than 4.5 kg), medium (2.5–4 kg), and small (less than 2.5 kg).
The standard-haired fur breeds include the large Gray Giant, White Giant, Silver, Soviet Chinchilla, Black-Brown, and Veiled Silver; the medium Viennese Blue, Butterfly, and Soviet Marder; and the small Russian Ermine and local breeds. The short-haired fur breeds include the Rex varieties. The White Downy is principal among the down breeds raised in the USSR (yielding 350–700 g of down per adult rabbit per year). Most of the fur breeds are raised not only for their pelts but also for their meat.
Outside the Soviet Union, the most important industrial breeds are those raised for fur and meat or for the meat alone. These include New Zealand White, the Giant Chinchilla, the Belgian Hare, the Blue Beveren, the Dutch Rabbit, the California, the Flemish Giant, the New Zealand Red, and the Champagne. Of the fur breeds, the most widespread are the Squirrel Rabbit, the Beveren, the Rex varieties, the Alaska, the Havana, the Coney, and the Sateen varieties.
V. I. LEPESHKIN
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