Animal Diversity Web

Ge­o­graphic Range

Oryc­to­la­gus cu­nicu­lus, also called a Eu­ro­pean, an Old World, or a do­mes­tic rab­bit, is the only species in its genus. The last Ice Age con­fined the species to the Iber­ian penin­sula and small areas of France and north­west Africa, but due to human ac­tion and adapt­abil­ity of this species, Eu­ro­pean rab­bits today exist in the wild on every con­ti­nent ex­cept Asia and Antarc­tica. Do­mes­ti­cated O. cu­nicu­lus may be found world­wide. (Parker, 1990; Wil­son and Reeder, 1993)

• Biogeographic Regions
• nearctic
  • introduced
• palearctic
  • native
• oriental
  • introduced
• ethiopian
  • introduced
• neotropical
  • introduced
• australian
  • introduced
• oceanic islands
  • introduced

• Other Geographic Terms
• cosmopolitan

Habi­tat

The pre­ferred habi­tats of this species in­clude dry areas near sea level with soft, sandy soil (for easy bur­row­ing). Brushy fields are pre­ferred for the cover they pro­vide, but forests are also in­hab­ited. Cul­ti­vated land was once well-suited, but this is no longer the case due to mod­ern plow­ing tech­niques which de­stroy rab­bit bur­rows. Par­tic­u­larly in cen­tral Eu­rope, O. cu­nicu­lus has learned to co­ex­ist with hu­mans in cities, mak­ing its home in parks and ceme­ter­ies as well as gar­dens and lawns. Human ac­tiv­i­ties, par­tic­u­larly the spread of agri­cul­ture, have often in­ad­ver­tently helped this species to col­o­nize new areas. (Parker, 1990)

• Habitat Regions
• temperate
• tropical
• terrestrial

• Terrestrial Biomes
• savanna or grassland
• forest

• Other Habitat Features
• urban
• suburban
• agricultural

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

Wild O. cu­nicu­lus weigh be­tween 1.5 and 2.5 kg, and are from 38 to 50 cm long. Do­mes­tic in­di­vid­u­als may be larger. The coat is gen­er­ally gray­ish, with black and brown (and some­times red) sprin­kled through­out. The un­der­side of the body is paler gray, and the un­der­side of the tail is white. Melanis­tic spec­i­mens are not un­usual. (Mac­don­ald, 1984)

This species (and rab­bit species gen­er­ally) have smaller ears and shorter, less pow­er­ful legs than their hares.

Oryc­to­la­gus cu­nicu­lus is the an­ces­tor of all do­mes­tic rab­bits (about 80 va­ri­eties!). Do­mes­ti­cated O. cu­nicu­lus vary tremen­dously in size, fur type, col­oration, and gen­eral ap­pear­ance. (Nowak, 1999) (Mac­don­ald, 1984; Nowak, 1999)

• Other Physical Features
• endothermic
• homoiothermic
• bilateral symmetry

• Range mass

  1.5 to 2.5 kg

  3.30 to 5.51 lb

• Range length

  38 to 50 cm

  14.96 to 19.69 in

• Average basal metabolic rate

  7.395 W

  AnAge

Re­pro­duc­tion

Mat­ing in rab­bits is gen­er­ally polyg­y­nan­drous, though males will at­tempt to mo­nop­o­lize par­tic­u­lar fe­males. (Mac­don­ald, 1984)

• Mating System
• polygynandrous (promiscuous)

Rab­bits are well-known for their re­pro­duc­tive ca­pac­ity. Oryc­to­la­gus cu­nicu­lus is ca­pa­ble of re­pro­duc­ing year-round, but most breed­ing ac­tiv­ity takes place in the first half of the year. Ges­ta­tion is about 30 days, and the av­er­age lit­ter con­tains 5 to 6 young. Fe­males ex­pe­ri­ence post­par­tum es­trus and thus may have sev­eral lit­ters per year, though spon­ta­neous abor­tions and re­sorp­tion of em­bryos are com­mon (pos­si­bly due to en­vi­ron­men­tal or so­cial stresses). (Vaughan, 2000; Nowak, 1999)

One rea­son for the re­pro­duc­tive suc­cess of rab­bits is in­duced ovu­la­tion, where eggs are only re­leased in re­sponse to cop­u­la­tion. (Mac­don­ald, 1984) Rab­bit pla­cen­tae allow an un­usu­ally high de­gree of con­tact be­tween ma­ter­nal and fetal blood­streams, a con­di­tion they share with hu­mans. Thus, they are use­ful mod­els for the study of human preg­nancy and fetal de­vel­op­ment. (Banks, 1989)

Neonates, called kit­tens, are naked, blind and help­less. The mother vis­its the nest for only a few min­utes each day to nurse them, but the milk is ex­tremely rich. Young are weaned at four weeks of age, at­tain sex­ual ma­tu­rity at about eight months, and can live up to nine years old. How­ever, mor­tal­ity rates in the first year of life fre­quently ex­ceed 90%. (Nowak, 1999; Mac­don­ald, 1984) (Banks, 1989; Mac­don­ald, 1984; Nowak, 1999; Vaughan, et al., 2000)

• Key Reproductive Features
• iteroparous
• year-round breeding
• gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate)
• sexual
• induced ovulation
• fertilization
• viviparous
• post-partum estrous

• Breeding interval

  Breeding may occur approximately monthly.

• Breeding season

  These animals breed throughout the year, although most breeding takes place in the first half of the year.

• Range number of offspring

  1 to 14

• Average number of offspring

  6

• Average number of offspring

  5

  AnAge

• Range gestation period

  30 to 37 days

• Average gestation period

  30 days

• Range weaning age

  22 to 31 days

• Average weaning age

  28 days

• Average time to independence

  4 weeks

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female)

  8 months

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female)
  Sex: female

  730 days

  AnAge

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male)

  8 months

Fe­males pro­vide ma­ter­nal care to their al­tri­cial young. Males are not in­volved in car­ing for young. (Mac­don­ald, 1984; Nowak, 1999)

• Parental Investment
• altricial
• pre-fertilization
  • provisioning
  • protecting
    • female
• pre-hatching/birth
  • provisioning
    • female
  • protecting
    • female
• pre-weaning/fledging
  • provisioning
    • female

Lifes­pan/Longevity

Do­mes­tic rab­bits can live to be up to nine years old. How­ever, mor­tal­ity dur­ing the first year of life in wild pop­u­la­tions is gen­er­ally quite high, and can reach as much as 90%. (Mac­don­ald, 1984; Nowak, 1999)

• Average lifespan
  Status: wild

  9 years

• Average lifespan
  Status: captivity

  9 years

• Typical lifespan
  Status: wild

  1 (high) years

• Average lifespan
  Status: wild

  less than 1 years

Be­hav­ior

Eu­ro­pean rab­bits are gre­gar­i­ous, ter­ri­to­r­ial an­i­mals. If soil con­di­tions and for­age sup­ply per­mit, they pre­fer to live in groups in large, com­plex bur­row sys­tems (war­rens). A typ­i­cal colony con­sists of six to ten adults of both sexes. Colonies have dis­tinct dom­i­nance hi­er­ar­chies, which are par­tic­u­larly im­por­tant for males, as dom­i­nance po­si­tion de­ter­mines which male will have pref­er­en­tial ac­cess to mates. A male's po­si­tion in the so­cial hi­er­ar­chy means that po­ten­tially costly con­flicts be­tween males over fe­males are rare. Ter­ri­to­ri­al­ity is also most ev­i­dent among dom­i­nant males dur­ing the breed­ing sea­son. (Parker, 1990; Nowak, 1999) (Nowak, 1999; Parker, 1990)

• Key Behaviors
• terricolous
• saltatorial
• nocturnal
• crepuscular
• motile
• sedentary
• territorial
• social
• dominance hierarchies

Home Range

Home range size varies with pop­u­la­tion den­sity and food abun­dance, but is usu­ally under 50 acres and often as small as one or two acres. Males' home ranges are on av­er­age twice as large as those of fe­males, and over­lap with those of sev­eral fe­males. (Parker, 1990) (Parker, 1990)

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Per­cep­tion

Oryc­to­la­gus cu­nicu­lus is gen­er­ally noc­tur­nal, spend­ing its days un­der­ground and for­ag­ing from evening until morn­ing. Though gen­er­ally silent, rab­bits are ca­pa­ble of mak­ing loud screams when fright­ened or in­jured. They com­mu­ni­cate with each other through scent cues and touch, and thump their hindlimbs on the ground to warn of dan­ger. (Nowak, 1999; Parker, 1990) (Nowak, 1999; Parker, 1990)

• Communication Channels
• visual
• tactile
• acoustic
• chemical

• Other Communication Modes
• vibrations

• Perception Channels
• visual
• infrared/heat
• tactile
• acoustic
• vibrations
• chemical

Food Habits

Oryc­to­la­gus cu­nicu­lus is a gen­er­al­ized her­bi­vore, eat­ing a di­verse diet of grasses, leaves, buds, tree bark, and roots. Gar­den­ers know them to eat let­tuce, cab­bage, root veg­eta­bles, and grains.

Al­though the diet is rel­a­tively low in nu­tri­tional value, and high in in­di­gestible ma­te­r­ial, O. cu­nicu­lus is one of sev­eral rab­bit species that are known to reingest feces (co­prophagy) to ob­tain extra nour­ish­ment from their food. The species has a very large cae­cum, in which bac­te­r­ial fer­men­ta­tion of oth­er­wise in­di­gestible ma­te­r­ial oc­curs. Pe­ri­od­i­cally, the con­tents of the cae­cum are defe­cated and reingested. These rab­bits are thought to de­pend upon this process for some es­sen­tial nu­tri­ents, which are re­leased or pro­duced by bac­te­ria and ab­sorbed on this sec­ond pass through the di­ges­tive sys­tem. (Mac­don­ald, 1984; Vaughan, 2000) (Mac­don­ald, 1984; Vaughan, et al., 2000)

• Primary Diet
• herbivore
  • folivore

• Plant Foods
• leaves
• roots and tubers
• wood, bark, or stems
• seeds, grains, and nuts
• fruit
• flowers

• Other Foods
• dung

Pre­da­tion

Rab­bits are preyed upon by a wide va­ri­ety of car­ni­vores, in­clud­ing ca­nines, fe­lines, mustelids, hawks and owls.

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

Old World rab­bits rep­re­sent one of the most eco­nom­i­cally im­por­tant mam­mal species. Wild O. cu­nicu­lus is a pop­u­lar game an­i­mal, es­pe­cially in Eu­rope. Va­ri­eties of this speces are raised com­mer­cially for meat, skins and wool, and are pop­u­lar as pets. These rab­bits are used ex­ten­sively (.5 mil­lion/year) in med­ical re­search and for test­ing the safety of chem­i­cals and con­sumer prod­ucts. (Nowak, 1999; Banks, 1989) (Banks, 1989; Nowak, 1999)

• Positive Impacts
• pet trade
• food
• body parts are source of valuable material
• research and education

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Neg­a­tive

Oryc­to­la­gus cu­nicu­lus has been highly suc­cess­ful in most places where it has been in­tro­duced, and it is con­sid­ered an agri­cul­tural pest in many areas (es­pe­cially where its nat­ural preda­tors have been elim­i­nated). These an­i­mals eat cul­ti­vated crops and com­pete with do­mes­tic an­i­mals for for­age. Mil­lions of dol­lars are spent an­nu­ally in coun­tries such as Aus­tralia, New Zealand, Britain, and the United States in ef­forts to con­trol, con­fine or ex­ter­mi­nate them. Ad­di­tion­ally, rab­bits have in­flicted enor­mous eco­log­i­cal dam­age in some areas where they have been in­tro­duced. (Mac­don­ald, 1984; Nowak, 1999)

• Negative Impacts
• crop pest
• causes or carries domestic animal disease

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

Few mam­mal species are far­ther from ex­tinc­tion than O. cu­nicu­lus. Not only is it valu­able to hu­mans as a do­mes­tic and game an­i­mal, but wild pop­u­la­tions have es­tab­lished them­selves suc­cess­fully in many parts of the world. How­ever, one va­ri­ety of O. cu­nicu­lus found on is­lands in the At­lantic and Mediter­ranean may be at risk. (Wil­son & Reeder, 1993)

• IUCN Red List

  Near Threatened
  More information

• IUCN Red List

  Near Threatened
  More information

• US Federal List

  No special status

• CITES

  No special status

Other Com­ments

Due to its pop­u­lar­ity as a game an­i­mal and a food source, O. cu­nicu­lus has been in­tro­duced by hu­mans widely around the world. These an­i­mals spread through much of the Mediter­ranean world in Roman times, and through much of Eu­rope dur­ing the Mid­dle Ages. Do­mes­ti­ca­tion and se­lec­tive breed­ing have been prac­ticed for over 1000 years. Dur­ing the Age of Ex­plo­ration, rab­bits were left on hun­dreds of is­lands as a food source for later voy­ages, often with dev­as­tat­ing con­se­quences for is­land ecolo­gies. (Nowak, 1999)

The in­tro­duc­tion of O. cu­nicu­lus into Aus­tralia has cre­ated an on­go­ing eco­log­i­cal case study. The first rab­bits were brought to Aus­tralia in the late 1700s, but the "in­va­sion" re­ally began around 1850. By 1900 O. cu­nicu­lus in Aus­tralia num­bered an es­ti­mated 20 mil­lion. Its range, lim­ited only by lack of water, spanned 1600 km. These an­i­mals be­came a se­ri­ous threat to agri­cul­ture, pri­mar­ily by com­pet­ing for food with sheep and cat­tle. There­fore, ex­ten­sive (and gen­er­ally un­suc­cess­ful) ef­forts to con­trol them were un­der­taken, in­clud­ing the large-scale use of poi­son baits. (Parker, 1990) A prob­lem of sec­ondary poi­son­ing of rab­bit preda­tors (them­selves in­tro­duced) has been doc­u­mented. (Hey­ward & Nor­bury, 1999)

The eco­nomic costs to agri­cul­ture are dwarfed, how­ever, by the eco­log­i­cal cost to the in­dige­nous Aus­tralian flora and fauna. Many na­tive mam­mal species are at a com­pet­i­tive dis­ad­van­tage to rab­bits. A num­ber of ex­tinc­tions have been re­ported, with many other species in steep de­cline, though in­tro­duced preda­tors have un­doubt­edly also played a role. Plant com­mu­ni­ties are also dev­as­tated by the vo­ra­cious rab­bits, and the de­nuded land­scape is sub­ject to in­creased ero­sion, fur­ther threat­en­ing na­tive species through habi­tat de­struc­tion. (Parker, 1990; Nowak, 1999)

On the other hand, rab­bits may pro­vide ben­e­fits to some na­tive species. Their bur­row­ing loosens soil, which can be ad­van­ta­geous for cer­tain plant and an­i­mal species, and aban­doned bur­rows pro­vide ready-made shel­ters. (Parker, 1990)

A new chap­ter in the war against rab­bits began with the in­tro­duc­tion of the dis­ease myx­o­mato­sis into pop­u­la­tions of O. cu­nicu­lus in the 1950s. Myx­o­mato­sis is caused by a virus en­demic to South Amer­i­can rab­bits, which have de­vel­oped such a re­sis­tance that the dis­ease has lit­tle ef­fect on them. How­ever, when Eu­ro­pean rab­bits were first ex­posed to the virus, the ef­fect was dev­as­tat­ing. In some areas the rab­bit pop­u­la­tion was vir­tu­ally wiped out. Those rab­bits that sur­vived grad­u­ally be­came more re­sis­tant, but this im­mu­nity weak­ens over time in the ab­sence of the virus. The re­sult is that rab­bit pop­u­la­tions have been re­duced, some­times by more than 90%, and re­main­ing pop­u­la­tions are pe­ri­od­i­cally rav­aged by new epi­demics of the virus. Myx­o­mato­sis has failed to erad­i­cate rab­bits, as many had hoped, but it has greatly di­min­ished their num­bers. (Hey­ward and Nor­bury, 1999; Mac­don­ald, 1984; Nowak, 1999; Vaughan, et al., 2000)

Con­trib­u­tors

Nancy Shef­ferly (ed­i­tor), An­i­mal Di­ver­sity Web.

Ati Tis­ler­ics (au­thor), Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor, Phil Myers (ed­i­tor), Mu­seum of Zo­ol­ogy, Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor.

Ref­er­ences

Banks, R. 1989. "Rab­bits: Mod­els and Re­search Ap­pli­ca­tions (US­AM­RIID Sem­i­nar Se­ries)" (On-line). Ac­cessed No­vem­ber 29, 1999 at http://​netvet.​wustl.​edu/​species/​rabbits/​rabtmodl.​txt.

Hey­ward, R., G. Nor­bury. 1999. Sec­ondary poi­son­ing of fer­rets and cats after 1080 rab­bit poi­son­ing. Wildlife Re­search, 26(1): 75-80.

Mac­don­ald, D. 1984. The En­cy­clo­pe­dia of Mam­mals. New York, NY: Facts on File Pub­li­ca­tions.

Nowak, R. 1999. Walker's Mam­mals of the World, Sixth Edi­tion. Bal­ti­more and Lon­don: The John's Hop­kins Uni­ver­sity Press.

Parker, S. 1990. Grz­imek's En­cy­clo­pe­dia of Mam­mals. New York, NY: Mc­Graw-Hill, Inc..

Thomp­son, H., C. King. 1994. The Eu­ro­pean Rab­bit: The His­tory and Bi­ol­ogy of a Suc­cess­ful Col­o­nizer. New York, NY: Ox­ford Uni­ver­sity Press.

Vaughan, T., J. Ryan, N. Czaplewski. 2000. Mam­mol­ogy. New York, NY: Har­court, Inc..

Wil­son, D., D. Reeder. 1993. Mam­mal Species of the World: A Tax­o­nomic and Ge­o­graphic Ref­er­ence. Wash­ing­ton, D.C: The Smith­son­ian In­sti­tu­tion.