Table Of ContentRabbit
Animal
Series editor: Jonathan Burt
Already published
Ant Charlotte Sleigh · ApeJohn Sorenson · Bear Robert E. Bieder · Bee Claire Preston
Camel Robert Irwin · Cat Katharine M. Rogers · Chicken Annie Potts · Cockroach Marion Copeland
CowHannah Velten · Crocodile Dan Wylie · Crow Boria Sax · Deer John Fletcher · Dog Susan McHugh
Dolphin Alan Rauch · Donkey Jill Bough · Duck Victoria de Rijke · Eel Richard Schweid
Elephant Dan Wylie · Falcon Helen Macdonald · Fly Steven Connor · Fox Martin Wallen
Frog Charlotte Sleigh · GiraffeEdgar Williams · GorillaTed Gott and Kathryn Weir
HareSimon Carnell · HorseElaine Walker · HyenaMikita Brottman · KangarooJohn Simons
Leech RobertG. W. Kirk and Neil Pemberton · LionDeirdre Jackson · Lobster Richard J. King
MonkeyDesmond Morris · MooseKevin Jackson · Mosquito Richard Jones · Octopus Richard Schweid
Ostrich Edgar Williams · Otter Daniel Allen · OwlDesmond Morris · Oyster Rebecca Stott
Parrot Paul Carter · Peacock Christine E. Jackson · PenguinStephen Martin · PigBrett Mizelle
PigeonBarbara Allen · Rabbit Victoria Dickenson · Rat Jonathan Burt · RhinocerosKelly Enright
Salmon Peter Coates · Shark Dean Crawford · SnailPeter Williams · Snake Drake Stutesman
Sparrow Kim Todd·SpiderKatja and Sergiusz Michalski·SwanPeter Young · Tiger Susie Green
Tortoise Peter Young · Trout James Owen · Vulture Thom van Dooren · Whale Joe Roman
WolfGarry Marvin
Rabbit
Victoria Dickenson
reaktion books
To Thumper, the first of her tribe to share our home
Published by
reaktion books ltd
33Great Sutton Street
London ec1v 0dx, uk
www.reaktionbooks.co.uk
First published 2014
Copyright © Victoria Dickenson 2014
All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior
permission of the publishers
Printed and bound in China by C&C Offset Printing Co., Ltd
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
isbn 978 1 78023 181 5
Contents
1 A Natural History 7
2 The Natural and Unnatural History of the European Rabbit 30
3 The ‘Useful’ Rabbit 61
4 Rabbit in Mind 94
5 Rabbits and Us 123
6 The Twenty-first-century Rabbit Paradox 155
A Few Rabbit Poems 181
Timeline 184
References 186
Select Bibliography 204
Associations and Websites 207
Acknowledgements 209
Photo Acknowledgements 210
Index 212
1 A Natural History
The rabbit is a paradoxical beast. It is an animal at once both
pet and supper, pest and product, invasive yet endangered,
prolific yet declining. Even its natural history displays a strange
contradiction, a story of an animal both wild and feral, with a
worldwide distribution made possible by the actions of its
greatest predator.
‘what, if anything, is a rabbit?’
Rabbits are lagomorphs, along with pikas and hares. The word
lagomorph derives from the Greek and means ‘hare shaped’. It
would seem evident that everyone knows what a rabbit is, but it has
been less obvious to biologists and particularly to evolutionary
palaeontologists, for whom rabbits have long presented a puzzle.
In 1957, Albert E. Wood, a vertebrate palaeontologist special -
izing in rodents, asked ‘What, if Anything, is a Rabbit?’1His
answer was not a rodent, but not an antelope either. Until 1912
biologists since Linnaeus had grouped rabbits with rats and
mice, based on their gnawing and constantly growing incisors.
Closer examination of their teeth (vertebrate palaeontologists
are as obsessed by teeth as dentists) revealed a distinctive differ -
ence between the dental patterns of the lagomorphs and rodents, Oryctolagus
cuniculus, the
and it appeared that there were ‘no good reasons for continuing
European rabbit.
7
the association of these two great groups of mammals’. However,
Nuralagus rex,
the giant were they more closely related to the bounding antelope and
Minorcan rabbit. leaping deer, as suggested by the author of a paper of 1912that
Reconstruction
with a living separated them from the gnawing rats and scurrying mice?2
European rabbit, Lagomorphs today are once again grouped with rodents, but
Oryctolagus
not as closely as they once were. With Rodentia, Lagomorpha
cuniculus, in the
foreground for form one part of the Glires, a large mammalian grouping called
comparison.
a clade, which in turn is part of a larger dynasty termed a ‘crown
clade’. There are four such dynasties of living mammal, each
des cended from a common ancestor in the remote past. Not sur-
prisingly for those who love rabbits, primates are also members
of the great dynasty that includes the lagomorphs, making our
disturbing sense of familiarity with them more plausible. While
8
Description:From Benjamin Bunny to Peter Cottontail, the Velveteen Rabbit to the Flopsy Bunnies, the Rabbit of Caerbannog to Bugs Bunny and Roger Rabbit, the winsome long-eared animal is a permanent fixture of our childhoods. We know rabbits for their place in our stories, myths, and legends, and also for how
