One of my friends from school really likes rabbits, so today I am writing about European rabbits.
Here are five interesting facts about them:
- These cute little guys grow up to 55 cm long and have distinctive bob-tails and long ears. Males are called bucks, females are called does and the babies are called kittens or kits.
- European rabbits live in groups of up to 30 animals in underground burrows called warrens. Only the does dig the warrens.
- They are an important prey species and are hunted by a wide range of predators, including foxes, weasels, eagles, hawks, wildcats and lynxes. When they sense danger, they thump their legs on the ground and flash the white under their tails, which alerts the rest of the group so that they can escape to the safety of their warrens.
- They are very fast breeders. Does can give birth to up to 12 kittens with every pregnancy, can breed up to 7 times every year and the babies are able to start breeding from the age of 3-4 months.
- European rabbits are native to Spain and Portugal in Europe and Morocco and Algeria in Africa. They have since been introduced into many parts of the world, including Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and North and South America. In Australia, 24 rabbits were originally introduced and their numbers exploded to over 600 million within 100 years, making them a very big problem.
I hope that you found these facts interesting and learned something new.
Are there any other interesting facts that you would like to share about European rabbits?