The purpose of this rabbit page is to educate people about rabbit care, behavior, companionship, and classification.
What is the strangest website you have ever been to?
This one by far: www.daxo.de
And the most awesome?
This one is way cool! You have got to check it out: www.alathea.org
The Scientific Classification of Rabbits
A comprehensive guide to rabbit classification
SUMMARY: Rabbits are NOT rodents!!! It's all in the teeth! Click here to see why...
| Pet Rabbits | Cottontails | Jackrabbits/Hares | Other |
This page answers the questions:
- How many different species of rabbits are there?
- What are the names of all the different rabbits?
- What do all the different rabbits look like?
- Where in the world do they live?
- What wild species did my domestic rabbit come from?
Rabbit Classification
Scientific names are used by scientists throughout the world so they will know exactly what species they are talking about. A robin in England is completely different from a robin in the United States, so it just doesn't do to use these common names.The idea of scientific classification (called taxonomy) was developed by Linnaeus around 1750. The basic idea was to create two names for an animal, the genus and the species, that is, a general and a specific name. The names are usually based on Latin or Greek words. In addition to the genus and species, other levels of classication are used to specify larger groupings.
This is how scientists classify your pet rabbit:
| Kingdom | Animalia | An animal |
| Phylum | Chordata | with a spinal chord |
| Class | Mammalia | that breast feeds its children. |
| Order | Lagomorpha | A rabbit, hare or pika. |
| Family | Leporidae | A rabbit or hare. |
| Genus | Oryctolagus | |
| Species | cuniculus |
Lago is Greek for rabbit, lepus is Latin for hare, and cuniculus is Latin for rabbit.
The genus and species of all other types of rabbits are listed in the next section. Click on the links to see their names and pictures.
People are also mammals, but they are in the Order Primates and are called Homo sapiens. The genus is Homo, meaning "man", and the species is sapiens meaning "wise".
Names and Pictures of all Rabbit Species (Click on the Links)
All pet rabbits were domesticated from Oryctolagus cuniculus, the European rabbit (click here for a picture). This is the true rabbit that originally lived only in Europe and North Africa. European rabbits are, by far, the most abundant. The species has now spread throughout the world both as a pet and in the wild. In Australia, rabbits are pests because they eat everything in site, multiply like you-know-what and have no predators.
There are at least 53 other species of rabbits. The genus Lepus contains 30 hares and jackrabbits. The genus Sylvilagus contains 13 cottontails. The other rabbit species are separated into many different groups.
A new rabbit species was recently discovered in the Annamite Mountains of Southeast Asia. It is a member of the genus Nesolagus and is closely related to the nearly extinct Sumatran rabbit.
Breeds are not Species
Some sites on the web are careless about the usage of these words. Two rabbits are considered different species if they cannot have kits together. There are about 54 species of rabbits.All pet rabbits were domesticated from the European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus). The different breeds of rabbits were developed from this one species by people. By carefully selecting mates for their pets, they brought out various different features: long or soft hair, big ears, small size, unusual colors and so on. All of these different breeds can have kits together. If we let our pet rabbits interbreed at random, they would quickly begin looking like their original ancestors again.
Some Other Rabbit Links
Want additional technical information about rabbits? Try The Rabbit: Husbandry, Health and ProductionWant to know more about endangered rabbit species and what you can do to help? Try Red List of Threatened Lagomorphs and International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN)