Newly Discovered Pre-Historic Bunnies Are Totally Creepy
If we’re to base the cuteness of animals on an arbitrary hierarchy, bunny rabbits would certainly fall somewhere in the top ten. With their big floppy ears, their legendary propensity to procreate and tastiness of their flesh, rabbits are just cuddly little animals. Their cuteness factor: off the charts.
Well, except in the case of this newly discovered species of rabbit (extinct, thankfully) that lived three to five million years ago and “was so hefty — six times the size of most rabbits today — that it didn’t hop and had no enemies.”
A rabbit that has no enemies? Think about the ramifications of a statement like that!
The new species, named the Minorcan King of the Rabbits (Nuralagus rex), weighed in at over 26.4 pounds and lived on the small island of Minorca, which is just off the coast of Spain. Scientists at the Catalan Institute of Paleontology who discovered the fossilized remains believe the particular species of rabbit was actually slow-moving and peaceful.
And yes, that is a rending of what scientists think the rabbit looked like, with an awkward black and white photo of a present day rabbit thrown in for comparison. But back to important matters, like how a giant rabbit that is slow and peaceable could possible have no enemies? Did these rabbits win other predators over with their pre-historic cuteness (it’s possible standards have changed because this rabbit is totally creepy in a fat, hunch-backed kangaroo kind of way)?
When the seawater returned and Minorca returned to its island status, the rabbit found itself with no predators. Over time, it grew to become 10 times the size of its now-extinct mainland cousin. Other inhabitants of the island at the time included a bat, a large dormouse and a giant tortoise.
Oh. That’s so much less exciting than this giant rabbit being a bad ass muthaf*cker of cuteness.
This type of evolutionary biology — where big animals become small and small animals become big — is quite common on islands and is actually known as “the island rule.”
“There is an underlying assumption that rabbits appeared some 40 million years ago and have been perfectly happy to stay just about the same,” [Brian] Kraatz, an assistant professor in the Department of Anatomy at the College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific, told Discovery News. “This new species is interesting in that it’s quite different from what we know of living or fossil rabbits. Aside from its incredibly large size, its hind legs are rather short, not so good for hopping.”
Or for lucky charms, for that matter.
Scientists believe climate change was the major factor leading to the species’ extinction.
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