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Did you know?.........
- The earliest known fossils of rabbits were found in Mongolia and China and date back 65 million years.
- Oldest known fossils of rabbits in North America date back 37 million years ago.
- The first known record of humankind's relationship with rabbits appear in Spanish cave paintings dating around the Stone Age. They appeared along with other animals on the wall of the caves during the Pleistocene period.
- The rabbit migrated to southwestern Eurpose to escape the cold of the Ice Age.
- Decendants of Ice Age rabbits were domesticated near the Mediterraneon region of Europe and Africa, somewhere around 600 B.C. (where humans used them for fur and meat).
- Phoenicians began trading the rabbits with other cultures and this is how they eventually spread to America, New Zealand and Australia.
Rabbits became pets beginning in the 1700s. - In the 1800s breed development began.
- Regulations for breeding and showing rabbits began in the mid 1930s in Great Britian.
Siino, Betsy S., ed. The Essential Rabbit. New York: Howell Book House, Wiley Inc., NY.
A biologist proposes reintroducing the long-vanished white-tailed jack rabbit to Yellowstone National Park. (Credit: Joel Berger, WCS)
Picture Courtesy of Dot Earth NewYork Times Blog
DOT EARTH - NY TIMES - NATURE BLOG
