Random wild rabbit question!

Random question of the day...

We've got a wildly and her baby on a grassy bit beside my work. I've not seen the baby yet (the boys at work say I get in too late to see it ) but I've seen mum and I'm surprised at how little her ears are!

Aren't wildies supposed to have big ears?? They're about quarter the size of Juniors!

hmmm... Juniors ears are magnificent! but a quarter of the size does sound quite small

The mum has teeny ears? Is there anything else about her that might lead you to believe she isn't 100% wildie?

They can be quite variable. I suspect that this is to do with where they live but I have no proof of that.

Barley has teeny ears whilst sasha has big ones. Probably where junior gets his big lugs from.  

Molly and Junior have such exquisite ears.  Larger than the average bunny, but they wear them well.  I've seen wildies here in the USA with smallish ears in a suburban environment, but I would always wonder if they weren't not all wildie.

Thumper.....the pics you have of your bunns sitting side by side in identical poses are just bunn perfection.  They could be spokesbunns!

I don't know about your cottontails Holly but in the UK the wild buns are all descended from some 11th century french domestic escapees.Obviously over the years they have had a fair bit of interbreeding with other escapees. I notice quite a bit of difference between wild buns even just within the county. In some places the buns look almost hare like with extra large eyes right to the top of their head. In others you see extra large ears, and in others you get both smaller eyes and ears. It's also worth bearing in mind that the majority of the buns you see are young as something like 90% of wildies die in their first year of life.

This has been interesting! I'm glad I asked now.

Very true, Junior does have jumbo ears

I've no other reason to believe she isn't 100% wildie. Just the ears that threw me.

I've been trying to get a pic of her but its a pain. The window is a bit tinted and I don't want to risk opening it or going out there in case I spook her and she runs on to the road and/or abandons the little one. I will keep trying from inside though.  She doesn't even know I'm there, bless her. She just snoozes under the bush.

Rabbits are magnificent creatures the world over.  We do have an unusual set of genetic crosses here in the Southwest USA.  I live just on the border of their natural habitat.  I will post some pictures in the Photoshoot section.  They are worth a looksee I think Maysie will find the last one especially interesting.