Rabbit vs Hare, Rabbit Meat Poisoning, Three-Rabits Motif, Cuniculture

Some reading notes on rabbits.

I casually looked up Wikipedia for Hare. I want to know, what's the difference between hare and rabit. Basically hare is larger, wild animal, can run extremely fast (72 km/h), lives above ground. Rabbits, are those dumb, cute ones, you see in people's homes. Here's a interesting quote about their mating behavior:

Normally a shy animal, the European Brown Hare changes its behaviour in spring, when hares can be seen in broad daylight chasing one another around meadows; this appears to be competition between males to attain dominance (and hence more access to breeding females). During this spring frenzy, hares can be seen “boxing”; one hare striking another with its paws (probably the origin of the term “mad as a March hare”). For a long time it had been thought that this was inter-male competition, but closer observation has revealed that it is usually a female hitting a male, either to show that she is not yet quite ready to mate, or as a test of his determination.

Also, remember that in Alice Adventures in Wonderland, there's the white rabbit, and there's the mad march hare. I never explicitly realized both are in it.

Learned the word Precocial. Hares are prococial, while rabbits are not. It's a biology term. If a animal's young is relatively mature and mobile from the moment of birth, it is called precocial. The opposite term is Altricial. For example, we are altricial.

Protein Poisoning from Eating Just Rabbit Meat

Another interesting thing is: Rabbit starvation, or called protein poisoning. Basically, when your diet is just lean meat, such as rabbits, your body cannot cope with it. This is quite interesting, because my whole life i've been infatuated with a fat-free diet. I thought that since the body can generate fat from protein and carbohydrates, and protein in general is the best (as in those protein rich diets advertised by body builders). I have since realized this is quite dangerous, because many essential nutrients are in fat only, and a diet without much fat and carbohydrates stresses out your liver.

Culture: Three Hares Motif

Another interesting discovery is Three hares.

Basically, in sacred buildings, a motif of 3 hares with connect ears appear, which appears in europe and china. The story entails some mysterious connection of religions and mythology, however, this story smells too much like a New Age shit. Essentially all the references points to one photographer's site that collect these photos and ponders on it.

Cunnilinguistics: Cuniculture

Another interesting quote:

When used for food, rabbits are both hunted and bred for meat. Snares or guns along with dogs are usually employed when catching wild rabbits for food. In many regions, rabbits are also bred for meat, a practice called cuniculture. Rabbits can then be killed by hitting the back of their heads, a practice from which the term rabbit punch is derived. Rabbit meat is a source of high quality protein. It can be used in most ways chicken meat is used. … Rabbit meat is leaner than beef, pork, and chicken meat.

I don't recall ever seeing rabbit meat sold in local supermarkets, in California, USA.

Note the interesting word: Cuniculture. And also about the Rabbit Punch.

About the naming:

Rabbits are often known affectionately by the pet name bunny or bunny rabbit, especially when referring to young, domesticated rabbits. Originally, the word for an adult rabbit was coney or cony, while rabbit referred only to the young animals. The word rabbit, however, mostly replaced the older word during the 19th century after coney became a vulgarism by analogy to the word cunt (widely considered vulgar) due to their similar pronunciation.

Coney! (pronounced cunny) I love it.

Finally, here's a photo, a tiger rabbit! LOL.