96 Fun Facts About Bunny

To which mammalian order do rabbits belong, sharing it with pikas and hares?

Rabbits, hares, and pikas are all classified under the order Lagomorpha. They were once grouped with rodents but were reclassified due to distinct anatomical differences, such as having two sets of upper incisors.

Which high-fibre food is essential to every rabbit's diet and a major component of commercial pellets?

Hay and grass should make up most of a pet rabbit's diet, while carrots, despite the cartoons, are high in sugar and best kept as an occasional treat.

What gives a rabbit its nearly 360-degree field of vision?

Eyes placed on the sides of the skull leave one small blind spot right in front of the nose, so a rabbit can struggle to see food sitting just under its mouth.

Which body part primarily assists a rabbit in regulating its body temperature?

Rabbits have few to no sweat glands, so they shed heat by changing blood flow through the ears, which are longer in warm climates.

What is a network of rabbit burrows called?

A warren first meant an enclosure where a landowner kept game such as rabbits for breeding, and only later the animals' own maze of tunnels.

What happened to Peter Rabbit's father in Mr. McGregor's garden?

He was put in a pie by Mrs. McGregor, which is why Mrs. Rabbit forbids the garden; Peter sneaks in anyway and only just gets out.

Why do rabbits skip the long pre-surgery fast?

They cannot vomit: a rabbit can't bring food back up under anaesthetic, so the long fast is skipped, and for the same reason a build-up from a low-fibre diet can block its gut.

A healthy rabbit's normal body temperature would count as what in a human?

A fever: a healthy rabbit runs at about 39.5°C (103°F), so a reading of 37°C, normal for a person, would be a warning sign of illness in a rabbit.

Which tiny breed, first produced in the early 1900s, tops out at just 2.5 lb (1.1 kg)?

Netherland Dwarf: its short, rounded head gives it a baby face, and it is often confused with the Polish, a small breed that is not a true dwarf at all.

How do rabbits differ from most rodents in the way their teeth grow?

Every one keeps growing: a rabbit's incisors and cheek teeth are all open-rooted and grow throughout life, worn down by chewing fibrous grass, whereas in most rodents only the incisors are ever-growing.

What covers the soles of a rabbit's feet?

Coarse fur: rabbits have no paw pads at all, so heavy rabbits kept on wire floors can develop sore hocks.

When a rabbit performs a sudden, joyful leap and twist in the air, what is this behavior commonly called?

Binkying: a binky is the leap-and-twist a contented rabbit performs, often mid-run; thumping the hind legs is the opposite signal, showing alarm or annoyance.

Which term describes a rabbit rubbing the scent gland under the jaw on objects and people?

Chinning in wild European rabbits signals readiness to mate as well as marking territory, using an odoriferous secretion from a chin gland.

How do newborn rabbits differ from newborn hares?

They are born blind and helpless: rabbit kits are altricial, naked and blind in a fur-lined burrow nest, whereas leverets arrive furred, open-eyed and able to move within hours.

The Easter Bunny began as an egg-bringing hare in the folklore of which religious group?

German Lutherans: German immigrants are said to have carried the 'Osterhase' to Pennsylvania in the 1700s, where children made nests for it to fill with coloured eggs.

Which foe does Bugs Bunny outwit in his 1940 breakthrough short, A Wild Hare?

Elmer Fudd: the short also gave Bugs his first 'What's up, Doc?', a line director Tex Avery said was everyday slang back home in Texas.

Bugs Bunny's accent is most often identified with which New York borough?

Brooklyn: Mel Blanc called the voice a mix of Brooklyn and Bronx accents, though director Tex Avery said he had asked for the sound of actor Frank McHugh.

The real hill of Watership Down, the rabbits' goal in Richard Adams's novel, lies in which English county?

Hampshire: the manuscript was turned down by every major publisher before the one-man firm of Rex Collings took it, and it went on to win the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian prize.

In 1903 Peter Rabbit became the first fictional character to be made into what?

A patented stuffed toy: Beatrix Potter made the Peter Rabbit doll herself and registered it in 1903, then followed it with a board game, making Peter the oldest licensed character.

Why did Thomas Austin release the rabbits that overran Australia?

For sport shooting: Austin, a keen hunter back in England, had rabbits shipped out to his estate in Victoria, and their descendants spread across the continent.

Which disease was deliberately released in the 1950s to cut wild rabbit numbers in Australia and France?

Myxomatosis: in 1952 a French doctor infected two wild rabbits just to clear his own estate, and the virus escaped to sweep through rabbits across western Europe.

What is the largest breed of domestic rabbit?

Flemish Giant: bred in Flanders, perhaps as early as the 16th century, it can top 20 lb (9 kg), yet its docile nature has earned it the nickname 'Gentle Giant'.

The Angora rabbit, bred for its long wool, is said to have originated in which country?

Turkey: the breed is named for Ankara, which was known as Angora until 1930, the city that also gave its name to the Angora goat and the Angora cat.

In Chinese folklore the Moon rabbit Yutu is the companion of which Moon goddess?

Chang'e: the Moon goddess lives on the Moon with the Jade Rabbit (Yutu), who pounds the elixir of life with mortar and pestle; in Japan and Korea the rabbit pounds rice cakes instead.

Until the 18th century an adult rabbit was a 'coney'; the word 'rabbit' originally meant only what?

The young animals: rabbits were not native to northern Europe, so English had no word of its own and borrowed 'coney' for the adult and, later, 'rabbit' for its young.

A 1202 puzzle about how fast a pair of rabbits could breed produced which famous series of numbers?

The Fibonacci sequence: Leonardo of Pisa asked how many pairs one pair would become in a year if rabbits never died, and each month's total proved to be the sum of the two before it.

What are the soft, nutrient-rich droppings that rabbits produce and then re-eat called?

Cecotropes: these soft, nutrient-rich pellets form in the cecum and are re-ingested directly, usually while the rabbit rests underground, so their vitamins and protein can be absorbed in the small intestine.

The Aztecs' Centzon Tōtōchtin, the 'Four Hundred Rabbits', were gods of what?

Drunkenness: the Four Hundred Rabbits were the children of Mayahuel, goddess of the maguey plant, and stood for the many effects of pulque, the drink fermented from its sap.

At the Mad Tea-Party in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, who sits asleep between the March Hare and the Hatter?

The Dormouse: fast asleep, it is used as a cushion by the other two, who rest their elbows on it and talk over its head.

In the Vietnamese zodiac, which animal takes the place of the rabbit found in the Chinese zodiac?

The cat: one explanation is that the Chinese name for the rabbit's year, mǎo, sounded like mèo, the Vietnamese word for cat; Vietnam's cycle also swaps the ox for the water buffalo.

The Bible's 'coney' is a mistranslation of the Hebrew shfanim, which actually refers to what animal?

Early English translators knew no hyraxes in northern Europe and guessed 'rabbit'.

The jackrabbit was named, for its long ears, after which animal?

The donkey: people first called it the 'jackass rabbit', a name Mark Twain made famous in Roughing It, and the animal is not a rabbit at all but a hare.

The idiom 'mad as a March hare' comes from what springtime behaviour?

Boxing with their paws: the bouts are often not rival males at all but a female fending off a suitor she is not yet ready to mate with.

Which of these 'hares' is really a domestic rabbit breed?

Belgian Hare: bred to look like a wild hare, it is a true rabbit, and its arrival in America set off a short-lived boom in rabbit breeding.

The rabbit-duck illusion first appeared in 1892 in Fliegende Blätter, a humour magazine from which country?

Germany: Fliegende Blätter was a Munich humour weekly whose 23 October 1892 issue ran the drawing; Ludwig Wittgenstein later used it in Philosophical Investigations to illustrate 'seeing that' versus 'seeing as'.

In American folklore, a truly lucky rabbit's foot comes from a rabbit killed where?

In a graveyard: the charm was meant to be the left hind foot, and sellers piled on unlucky details such as midnight and the dark of the moon to make it sound more potent.

The Playboy Bunny outfit was the first commercial uniform to be granted what?

A registered US trademark: the suit was cut so low that Bunnies were trained to serve drinks with the 'Bunny Dip', bending at the knees and never at the waist.

Watership Down began as stories Richard Adams told to whom on long car journeys?

His two daughters, Juliet and Rosamond, were 'very, very persistent' that he write the car-journey stories down, so he spent his evenings turning them into a novel.

In Watership Down, which runty young rabbit's frightening vision sets the exodus from Sandleford in motion?

Fiver owes his name to rabbit arithmetic: Adams's rabbits count only to four, so the runt of a bigger litter is Hrairoo, loosely 'little one of many', or Fiver in English.

What are the names of Peter Rabbit's three sisters?

Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail, the good little bunnies, go blackberrying while Peter raids the garden, so they sup on bread, milk and blackberries and he gets a dose of camomile tea.

Why did Beatrix Potter print The Tale of Peter Rabbit herself in 1901?

Publishers had turned it down: at least six said no, wanting a bigger book in colour, so Potter printed 250 copies herself, and one of the six, Frederick Warne, then took it on.

Rabbits breed so fast partly because a doe releases her eggs in response to what?

Mating itself: rabbits are induced ovulators with no regular cycle to wait for, and a doe can conceive again straight after giving birth.

Roughly how long does a mother rabbit carry her kits before giving birth?

About a month: smaller litters tend to arrive a little later than big ones, and a doe can be mated again almost as soon as she has given birth.

How often does a mother rabbit typically return to the nest to nurse her kits?

Once every 24 hours: the doe visits for only a few minutes a day, and her extremely rich milk carries the kits through until the next feed.

Pet rabbits are most active at which time of day?

Dawn and dusk: pet rabbits are most active then, which is why owners are advised to offer their pellets and greens in the early morning and late afternoon.

In The Velveteen Rabbit, which illness means the boy's toys must be taken away and burned?

Scarlet fever: the doctor calls the rabbit a mass of germs fit only for burning, but as it waits in a sack it sheds a real tear, and a fairy steps out to make it Real.

Which US president fended off a swimming rabbit from his fishing boat?

Jimmy Carter: he shooed the swamp rabbit away while fishing near his home in Plains, Georgia, and when reporters heard of it months later the press dubbed it the 'killer rabbit attack'.

The pygmy rabbit, one of the world's smallest rabbits, is native to which country?

United States: it lives among the sagebrush of the American West, where, unlike the cottontails around it, it digs its own burrows.

The volcano rabbit, or teporingo, survives on volcanic slopes just outside which capital?

Mexico City: it survives on a few volcanoes just beyond the capital, Popocatépetl among them, and unlike other rabbits it warns of danger with a short, high-pitched bark, as pikas do.

The Amami rabbit, often called a living fossil, survives on two islands of which country?

Japan: the Amami rabbit lives only on Amami Ōshima and Tokunoshima, a remnant of ancient rabbits that died out on the Asian mainland and survived on islands cut off from it.

Snowshoe hare numbers famously rise and fall in a cycle tied to which predator?

Canada lynx: Hudson's Bay Company fur records show the two rising and crashing together about every ten years, and when the hares collapse the lynx may roam vast distances and largely stop breeding.

Which breed, the original lop-eared rabbit, has the longest ears of any rabbit breed?

English Lop: prized as a pet by the Victorians, when rabbits were mostly kept for meat and fur, it was later crossed to create the French Lop.

Which actor played detective Eddie Valiant opposite a cartoon rabbit in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

Bob Hoskins was far from the first choice: Harrison Ford's price was too high and Eddie Murphy turned the part down before the Londoner took it.

A Himalayan rabbit's dark points appear because its pigment forms only in what condition?

Below a certain temperature: the pigment gene switches off in warm skin, so only the cooler extremities darken, and a Himalayan reared above 30°C stays white all over.

Which battery brand's drum-beating bunny 'keeps going and going' in American TV ads?

Energizer launched its bunny in 1988 as a parody of rival Duracell's own drumming bunny, a mascot Duracell still uses in most of the world outside North America.

In 2006 Disney regained Oswald the Lucky Rabbit by trading which sportscaster to NBC?

Al Michaels: Disney released the sportscaster from ABC to NBC in 2006 in a deal that returned Oswald's rights from Universal; Oswald predates Mickey Mouse, whom Disney created after losing the rabbit in 1928.

Which actor plays Elwood P. Dowd, whose best friend is an invisible six-foot rabbit, in the 1950 film Harvey?

James Stewart had already stepped into the role on Broadway during the play's original run, and the film brought him an Oscar nomination.

In Harvey, Elwood P. Dowd calls his rabbit friend what kind of creature from Celtic myth?

A púca: Elwood explains that Harvey is a pooka, a shape-shifting spirit of Celtic folklore fond of 'rum-pots, crackpots'; Mary Chase's 1944 play earned the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1945.

Thumper, a young rabbit voiced by a four-year-old, is the title character's best friend in which Disney film?

Bambi: Thumper began as the minor Friend Hare of Felix Salten's novel, but four-year-old Peter Behn's lively voice work led the studio to build the part up.

Miffy, the picture-book rabbit known as Nijntje in Dutch, was created by which artist?

Dick Bruna dreamed her up in 1955 from the stories he told his young son about a rabbit the two had seen in the dunes on a seaside holiday.

The Velveteen Rabbit (1922), about a toy that longs to become real, was written by whom?

Margery Williams published The Velveteen Rabbit in 1922 with illustrations by William Nicholson; the toy is made real by the nursery magic Fairy after being loved threadbare by its boy.

Who narrates the Bunnicula books, about a 'vampire' rabbit that drains vegetable juice?

Harold, the family dog, tells the story, in which Chester, sure the new rabbit is a vampire, reads that a stake will kill one and tries pounding a steak onto it.

Where does Br'er Rabbit trick Br'er Fox into throwing him?

The briar patch: he begs to be roasted, hanged or drowned instead, so Br'er Fox flings him into the thorns, and he skips away calling that he was bred and born there.

In Monty Python's Grail quest, King Arthur destroys the killer rabbit with what weapon?

The Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch: a monk reads out the instruction to count to three, and Arthur promptly counts 'One, two, five!' before a knight corrects him.

Which Monty Python character leads Arthur to the cave of the Rabbit of Caerbannog?

Tim the Enchanter, played by John Cleese, conjures fireballs and leads the knights to the Cave of Caerbannog, warning of 'the most foul, cruel and bad-tempered rodent you ever set eyes on'.

Which film has Frank, in a rabbit costume, give the world 28 days?

Donnie Darko: a jet engine falls on a house in its opening minutes, and it reached cinemas only weeks after September 11 and flopped, then gained a cult following.

Which General Mills cereal's rabbit mascot is forever told the cereal is 'for kids'?

Trix: the 'Silly Rabbit' arrived in a 1959 commercial, and he has not always gone hungry, because children voting by box top have more than once let him have a bowl.

Which feminist writer went undercover as a Playboy Bunny in 1963 for the exposé 'A Bunny's Tale'?

Gloria Steinem took a job at the New York Playboy Club for Show magazine, and her account of the Bunnies' working lives was later filmed for television with Kirstie Alley playing her.

The endangered Lower Keys marsh rabbit of Florida is named after whom?

Hugh Hefner: the biologist who described the rabbit in 1984 named it hefneri to thank the Playboy company, which had helped pay for his research.

Bad Bunny's El Último Tour Del Mundo (2020) was the first what to top the Billboard 200?

All-Spanish-language album: the only earlier chart-toppers sung mostly in Spanish, by Selena and Il Divo, both mixed in other languages, so this was a first in the chart's 64 years.

Bad Bunny, born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, grew up where in the Caribbean?

Puerto Rico: born in Bayamón and raised in Vega Baja, he bagged groceries at a supermarket while posting the songs to SoundCloud that got him noticed.

Bunny Wailer founded The Wailers alongside Bob Marley and which other singer?

Peter Tosh: the three formed the Wailing Wailers in 1963, and Bunny later quit after refusing to play the 'freak clubs' their label had booked.

In 8 Mile, B-Rabbit's best friend David Porter hosts rap battles under which stage name?

B-Rabbit freezes with stage fright at Future's battle early on; 'Lose Yourself' later won the Academy Award for Best Original Song.

Which 1987 thriller gave English the phrase 'bunny boiler' with a scene of a pet rabbit cooked on a stove?

Fatal Attraction: Glenn Close's Alex Forrest boils the Gallagher family's pet rabbit, giving English the phrase 'bunny boiler'; Close was nearly passed over because producers doubted she could seem 'sexual enough'.

Whose stainless-steel Rabbit sold for $91.1 million in 2019, then a record for a living artist?

Jeff Koons had lost the living-artist record six months earlier to David Hockney's $90.3 million pool painting, and his shiny steel bunny won it straight back.

Which German Renaissance artist painted the 1502 watercolour Young Hare?

Albrecht Dürer painted the hare in his Nuremberg workshop; Emperor Rudolf II later bought it, and Vienna's Albertina now keeps the fragile original in store and usually shows a copy.

Which Roman province was nicknamed the 'land of the rabbits'?

Hispania: coins struck there under Hadrian show the province as a woman with a rabbit at her feet, and the poet Catullus sneered at a rival as a son of 'rabbit-ridden' Celtiberia.

Rabbit Hash, Kentucky, is famous for electing what kind of mayor since 1998?

Dogs: the first, a mutt named Goofy Borneman-Calhoun, took office in 1998, and the 2016 election doubled as a fundraiser that helped rebuild the town's burned-out general store.

Ōkunoshima, nicknamed 'Rabbit Island', secretly made what from the late 1920s?

Poison gas: the plant was so secret that the island was left off maps; rabbits were its test animals, though today's are thought to descend from a few released by a local school decades later.

Australia's Rabbit-Proof Fence, finished in 1907, was built to keep rabbits out of which state?

Western Australia: the 1,833 km No. 1 Fence was the longest unbroken fence in the world when finished, and as it mattered less against rabbits it found a second job holding back migrating emus.

'The rabbit died' became a euphemism for a positive result in which kind of test?

Pregnancy: in the 1930s Friedman test a woman's urine was injected into a rabbit and its ovaries examined for changes; in truth every test rabbit died, because the ovaries had to be dissected to read the result.

In Aesop's fable, what does the hare do midway through the race against the tortoise?

Takes a nap: sure of winning, the hare dozes off and the tortoise plods past; Disney's Oscar-winning cartoon of the fable gave the world cocky Max Hare, believed to be one inspiration for Bugs Bunny.

In Zootopia (2016), Judy Hopps becomes the first rabbit in the city to hold which job?

Police officer: Judy achieves her childhood dream of joining the force, only for Chief Bogo to underestimate her and put her on parking duty.

In boxing, a 'rabbit punch' is an illegal blow to which part of the body?

Back of the head: a rabbit punch hits the back of the head or base of the skull, risking spinal injury; the name comes from the gamekeeper's technique of killing a rabbit with one sharp blow to the neck.

Welsh rarebit, first recorded in 1725 as 'Welsh rabbit', is essentially what dish?

Cheese sauce on toast: there has never been any rabbit in it; the name was probably a joke, and the 'rarebit' spelling is a later attempt to tidy it up.

Saying 'rabbit rabbit' aloud on waking is a luck superstition for which day?

First day of a month: the words must be the first you speak that morning, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt was reported to say 'Rabbits' at the start of every month without fail.

In The Tale of Benjamin Bunny, what do Peter and his cousin go back into Mr. McGregor's garden to recover?

Peter's coat and shoes: Mr. McGregor had dressed a scarecrow in them, so the cousins lift them off and fill Peter's handkerchief with onions as a present for his mother.

Lola Bunny made her first appearance in which 1996 film?

Space Jam: Lola strolls in to join the Tunes' basketball team for the big game against the Monstars, and Bugs falls for her on the spot.

What colour are the eyes of an albino rabbit?

Pink: with no pigment to colour them, an albino rabbit's eyes look ruby pink, which is why breeders call such animals ruby-eyed whites; blue-eyed white rabbits are a different gene entirely.

The mechanical hare, invented in 1912 by American Owen Patrick Smith, launched which modern sport?

Greyhound racing: the sport grew out of coursing, in which hounds chased live hares across open ground, and in 1919 Smith opened the first track, at Emeryville, California.

In Through the Looking-Glass, the March Hare returns as a messenger under what name?

Haigha: Carroll said the name should be pronounced to rhyme with 'mayor', which sounds like 'hare' in non-rhotic English; his fellow messenger Hatta is the Hatter.

In Alice in Wonderland, the White Rabbit mistakes Alice for his housemaid, named what?

Mary Ann: the White Rabbit orders 'Mary Ann' to fetch his gloves and fan, taking Alice for his housemaid; she then grows too large inside his house and gets stuck, and he later serves as herald at the trial.

Which Art Garfunkel song from Watership Down was Britain's best-selling single of 1979?

Bright Eyes: Mike Batt wrote it after the film's original director asked for a song about death; Garfunkel's version spent six weeks at number one in spring 1979 and outsold every other single that year.

Jefferson Airplane's 'White Rabbit' appears on which 1967 album?

Surrealistic Pillow: Grace Slick had written 'White Rabbit' for her previous band, the Great Society, and brought it with her when she joined the Airplane two weeks before recording began.

The jackalope hoax was popularised in the 1930s by taxidermists in which US state?

Wyoming: Douglas Herrick and his brother Ralph of Douglas, Wyoming, grafted deer antlers onto a jackrabbit carcass in the 1930s and sold it to the local La Bonte Hotel, spawning a souvenir industry.

Night of the Lepus (1972), about giant killer rabbits, starred which Psycho actress?

Janet Leigh, Psycho's shower victim, starred opposite Stuart Whitman in Night of the Lepus; the attack scenes used ordinary domestic rabbits on miniature sets plus actors in rabbit costumes.