When European rabbits arrived in Australia in the 19th century, they were brought in as familiar game animals for hunting rather than as a threat to the environment. Within decades, however, their population exploded across the continent. With few natural predators and the ability to adapt to a wide range of landscapes, rabbits spread from […]
In the autumn of 1726, an extraordinary claim gripped Britain and left even some of the country’s most respected physicians baffled. A poor woman from Surrey named Mary Toft insisted she had given birth not to a baby, but to rabbits. The bizarre story quickly spread beyond her village, attracting surgeons, scientists and even the […]
A bizarre, naturally occurring virus is giving wild rabbits a truly unsettling makeover — transforming their faces with horn-like or tentacle-shaped growths that have earned them the nickname “zombie bunnies.” Known as Shope papillomavirus (SPV) or cottontail rabbit papillomavirus (CRPV), this infection primarily affects wild cottontail rabbits in the United States. While the strange protrusions […]
