What, behind the rabbit? It IS the rabbit!

This was not the inspiration for Sir Bedivere's Large Wooden Rabbit.

Scientists have discovered that the world really did have a giant rabbit, though — or at least a one that was much bigger than today's furry-eared friends. This big Bugs Bunny ancestor was Nuralagus rex, or "the Minorcan king of the rabbits." The large rabbit was named that because of its size and also because of where the fossils were found — on the island of Minorca, off the coast of Spain. "Look at the bones, man [or woman]!"

That island connection is a huge one because it meant that the number of predators that Nuralagus rex would face was limited nearly entirely to what was already on the island (or introduced there by the occasional marauding ship full of conquistadors — those were usually rats, though, and so the rabbits would just kill the rats before they could transmit any dread diseases they happened to be carrying on their furry backs or feet). So, in the relative isolation, the "king of the rabbits" got to be six times of rabbits today and weigh in at 26 pounds. Check out the photo illustration: Those rabbits were huge! Lock up the carrot patch!

Notice, though, that you don't see a whole lot of big ears on those ancient rascals. See, the same evolution that dealt them a stacked deck in terms of predator paucity that enabled them to get that big also made sure that that lack of predators had some negative effects as well — namely, no big ears. If you don't need to hear that some bigger sharp-clawed, saber-toothed animal is barging toward you fangs bared, then you don't really need ears that are larger than normal, now do you?

In the same vein, these big bunnies didn't really have the ability to hop, like their modern counterparts do. (Not all that much like today's rabbits at all, are they?) Nuralagus rex had big long legs but didn't have the spine necessary to enable proper hopping, so they probably waddled around like ducks.

Other inhabitants of this island were bats and dormice. (Did Lewis Carroll pass through at any point?)

One more thing these ancient rabbits had a lack of: vision. Not too many carrots on Minorca, combined with that same lack of need to see the prey coming at you out of the corner of your very small eye, and you have something evolution just didn't provide. Good thing the biggest other animal on the island was a tortoise. Even a waddling rabbit could outrun that.