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Wild rabbit
Wild rabbit
- THAT'S ME
- FACTS
- OBSERVATIONS
- ST.MARTINS
- MULTIMEDIA
- QUIZ
Dear explorer, dear explorers,
I have two ears, which are also known as the cutlery you humans use to eat your soup. I have a little tail, which is named after fragrant plants that bloom again in the meadows in spring. I nimbly make hooks to escape my enemies. I take refuge in a burrow under the ground when things get dicey. I live there with my whole family and snuggle up close to them during the day. At dusk and at night, I'm out and about exploring the world.
Did you recognize who I am? - Am I the wild rabbit or the hare? Is there even a difference between hares and rabbits?
All my love,
Your wild rabbit
Header image: Thorsten Denhard, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Image credit: A wild rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) by Walter Baxter, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Difference between rabbits and hares
Rabbits that are kept at home as pets are often referred to as hares. However, this is not correct. Although rabbits, like hares, belong to the hare family, they have a completely different way of life. In contrast to wild rabbits, hares could never be domesticated due to their solitary way of life. However, our domestic rabbits in different colors and sizes were developed from wild rabbits through breeding.
What does domestication actually mean? This is the process of changing wild animals into domestic or farm animals, which takes place over many generations. So it doesn't matter whether they are huge or tiny, with smooth or shaggy fur: when we talk about rabbit-like pets, we are always talking about rabbits, of which there are simply many different breeds.
There are also a number of differences in the way rabbits and hares live. For example, the wild rabbit lives with its entire family in an underground burrow. It gives birth to between 5 and 10 young several times a year, which are born naked, blind and deaf, making them nestlings. Hares are solitary animals. Males and females only meet during the mating season and then go their separate ways again. The mother gives birth to between one and five fully developed young. They already have fur and can already see and hear, so they are so-called nest fledglings. The young hares are laid individually by the female in different hiding places, so they are alone from the start. The young hares are only suckled for about four weeks and are then independent. The brown hare is an adult at around seven months.
Visually, the hare is larger, has longer legs and is generally much more athletically built. You can also see from the eyes that the iris of the brown hare is a striking amber color, while that of the rabbit is simply dark brown.
Image credit 1: © Jean-Jacques Boujot from Paris, France, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons Image credit 2: © JJ Harrison, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Distribution
The wild rabbit is widespread throughout Europe and is only missing in central and northern Scandinavia and Iceland. In the 18th and 19th centuries, rabbits were introduced to Australia and New Zealand. They were also naturalized in South Africa and North America and in South America in the middle of the 20th century. It also lives on numerous islands in the Pacific, off the African coast and in the Caribbean.
Appearance
Wild rabbits have a rather stocky body shape and are relatively small compared to a hare. Their small body size allows them to walk in and out of their burrow without any problems. They have large dark eyes, small rounded ears - also known as spoons - and a coat that is gray-brown to sand-colored on the upper side and light gray on the belly. The tail, also known as the flower, is white on the underside and black on the upper side.
Way of life
Rabbits are very sociable animals, they dig underground burrows in which they then live together with their whole family. If you want to observe them, this is best done at dusk and in the early hours of the morning when they are most active. The mating season is from February to September. During this time, a female can give birth to between three and seven litters of eight to ten young each. Initially they are blind, deaf and furless and are known as nestlings.
Food
Rabbits are herbivores and feed on leaves and various herbs and grasses. Their digestion is exciting because their stomach has only weak muscles. Food is transported from the stomach to the intestines mainly by the intake of new food. Rabbits therefore consume small amounts of food between 30 and 80 times a day, mainly in the early morning and late evening hours and at night. They also lack enzymes to break down cellulose, which is why they excrete two different types of feces. The softer so-called appendix feces, which consists of undigested food components and bacterial biomass, is excreted in the morning and eaten again immediately after excretion. In this way, the animals absorb important vitamins and proteins, for example. Moisture is removed from the second droppings during the day, resulting in hard pellets that are no longer eaten.
Enemies
Potential predators include weasels, polecats, martens, foxes, lynxes and wolves, as well as larger birds of prey.
Where to find
Wild rabbits are subject to large fluctuations in their populations. If the population is large, wild rabbits can be easily observed, especially at dusk. Rabbits also prefer to build their burrows in the immediate vicinity of human settlements and live there in large colonies. If the population is small, as is currently the case, observation is not easy.
Research Station
Would you like to get up close and personal with one of the largest rabbit breeds? Then visit our German giant rabbits Nemo and Mogli during one of our animal-assisted programs in the research station. This is located in the children's area in the St. Martins thermal baths.
Interactive content
A video with special content about the wild rabbit
