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Black-tailed jack rabbit - LEPUS CALIFORNICUS
Class: Animals with Milk Glands (Mammalia)
The Name "Jack rabbit": "Jack rabbit" gets its humerous name from the fact that its ears look like those of a jack ass. Since it does not burrow, it should probably have been called a "jack hare," but it wasn't.
Location: Western United States and northern Mexico.
Habitat: Terrestrial. Desert plateaus, grasslands.
Description: The jackrabbit's coat is gray-brown, with white markings on the forehead, around the eyes, and on the backs of the ears. The ears are four to five inches long. The tip of its stumpy tail and the tips of the large ears are black. This hare grows from fifteen to twenty inches long, with two to four more inches for its tail. It weighs upwards of seven pounds.
Behavior: In winter the diet of the jackrabbit is based chiefly on bark and buds of bushes, and in summer it prefers to eat tender grasses. In very dry periods of the year it will eat cacti, which are quite plentiful in some parts of its range. It is a solitary animal, and its behavior is much like that of the other members of the genus Lepus.
Reproduction: Gestation lasts about a month and a half, and the female gives birth to a litter of one to six young. These are born covered with fur and with their eyes already open. Like most hares, the female does not make a nest or burrow, and mating occurs throughout the year, with the possible exception of the months September through December in the southernmost parts of its range.
Go to the Rabbits Page to get a general discussion of this order of animals.
Go to the Rabbits Index to study the other rabbits and hares included in America Zoo.
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