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| A young brown hare, watercolor, 1502, Albrect Dürer —Wiki |
A photographer, hoping to sell prints, conflated rabbits with snowshoe hares calling them Easter Bunnies. Augh! For the record, hares are not bunny rabbits. They're not even distant cousins either. They may look alike, but it's convergent evolution. It's a great herbivore model. But they are a very separate species, even more divergent than sheep are to goats. More like gazelles and sheep. Different genus, Genius!
Through I suspect the hare was the mythological pre-Christian role model, the term, Easter Bunny referred to a rabbit, because in the Middle Ages rabbits (not hares) were called cunnys, which rhymes with bunny and hunny. Baby cunnys were called rabbits (or kits), but that word cunny was later changed to coneys, because prostitutes were called... Well, you get the picture. Coney Island. Rabbits, or....?
European cunnys/conejos (Oryctolagus cuniculus) are not native to most of Europe, they came from Iberia, they're not even native to Northern Europe or Britain. Some historians think rabbits were brought to Northern Europe and Britain by the Romans. But the Romans preferred to eat sleepy doormice. So, this speculation is wrong, as “during the Middle Ages, they were regarded as a high-status food and transported across Europe.” —Discover Magazine
Most historians agree that rabbits were introduced to Northern Europe in the Middle Ages. The Normans brought rabbits to Britain and Ireland. And cunnys were easy dinner fixins'. Which led to a population explosion, and some really weird Medieval manuscript drawings of bloodthirsty hares (not bunnies) armed to the teeth with lances, axes, swords, hellbent on harming humans.
Hares do not make good pets, they're not domesticated, and share few traits with rabbits. They're solitary creatures, prone to boxing and brawling with potential mates and interlopers alike. The term "mad as a March hare" came from observing their combatative breeding nuptials. (Don't preach to me about the "wrong" use of combatative vs combative. Just. Don't. It's in the OED.) How mad? Go ask Alice.
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| Lewis Carroll's Alice and the Mad March Hare (a European hare)—Wiki |
Mountain hares are smaller than European, or brown hares. The maigheach bhan, or bocaire fasaich, or Scottish mountain hare (Lepus timidus), is a hare of many colors and an astonishing assortment of names: whiddie baudrons, bawtie, cutty, donie, fuddie, lang lugs and maukin. AKA the blue hare, tundra hare, variable hare, the white, snow, or alpine hare (but never an Arctic hare), the mountain hare is big on camo—like ptarmigans and stoats, it turns white in winter—except for the Irish hare (L. t. hibernicus), a separate (sub) species—it prefers to tan the beaches.
(In Irish mythology, the shapeshifter hare, the giorrea (little deer), is associated with the realm of the Otherworld. To harm a hare carried dire consequences. The warrior Oisín was spirited away to the Otherworld for accidentally wounding a hare with his dart, who was a woman of the Sídhe. Druids used hares in divination and prophesy by catching them, then turning them loose to guise the path of their escape.)
There are hares, and there are even more hares. There are 32 species of hares worldwide, and not one of them can crossbreed with rabbits (they have 48 chromosomes vs. rabbits' 44 chromosomes.) According to an article in LiveScience, “There are … "cryptic species" that appear identical but are genetically distinct.” Probably a good thing too, otherwise we'd have Monty Python killer rabbit-hares running amok armed with swords and whatnot whacking the bushes and our kneecaps.
European explorers were terribly cavalier at identifying Old and New World animals so there were bound to be mix-ups. Take our native North American hares, for example. Jackrabbits are not rabbits. Hares are larger, have longer black-tipped ears, large amber eyes, long hind legs, and are positively antisocial as compared to cuddly wabbits. They also tuck their tails down when they run—and they’re faster too, clocking in at 45MPH.
Despite its confusing common name, a jackrabbit is a hare. Short for jackass-(who looks like a)-rabbit. Got that? Of course, the word “jack” in front of rabbit, sort of like a Cousin Jack reference, as in being distantly related (not Cornish miners), was probably a nod to the fact that the explorers knew the New World creatures were hares. Jacks and Jills refer to hares, not rabbits.
On the other hand, a Belgian hare is not a hare, it's a true rabbit bred to look like a hare. A cottontail, on the other hand, really is a wabbit. Rabbits are social animals and make great pets. Think Peter Rabbit. Not anti-social Jack, or he'll smack the shit outta you. That goes for Jill too. Especially Jill.
According to H. L. Menken, "Zoologically speaking, there are no native rabbits in the United States; they are all hares." I guess he never saw a cottontail. Or perhaps fuzzy logic was involved. What he probably meant was there are no European rabbits (Oryctolagus) vs. native rabbits in America. Which is true as cottontails (Sylvilagus) are a separate species.
Rabbits and hares from the Leporidae family (not its sub-order, Genus), which is a sub-branch of the order Lagomorpha, which includes rabbits, hares and pikas (sometimes called rock hares). Got that? It's a Kings Played Chess On Fine Grain Sand ss moment... Order, Family, Genus, Species: it goes Lagomorpha, Leporidae. And that's where the semblance ends.
North and South American cottontail rabbits Sylvilagus are the ONLY rabbit that doesn't burrow, like the hare. They're sort of a straddle-the-difference species niche. They're not Old World rabbits. They're more rabbitish than rabbity, at this point, I'm probably splitting hares. Sylvilagus xx— (13 species) are not European rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus—there can be only one!), starting with its tail, and its habits. But I'm not about to list all the burrowing/ feeding differences, let alone, weird kinetic skull differences. You'll have to look them up yourself hare.
BTW, since I know you're dying to ask, cottontails (Sylvilagus) cannot interbreed with domestic European (Oryctolagus) rabbits. Though they can do the down and dirty, and even produce embryos, European rabbits have 22 pairs of chromosomes, while native wild cottontails have 21pairs of chromosomes. Score one for DNA! At least that gene pool's clean.
