The rabbit, one of the cutest & adorable animals in the world. Hopping around with joy with its little tiny legs its long flopping ears. But these cute rabbits are prey to many animals. So these rabbits have evolved to become a prey avoiding ninja. Their self defence mechanisms are quite advanced. They have big ears to sharpen their listening, strong hind legs to escape quickly, 360 degrees vision to look out for predators in every angle, a long distance eye sight to look out for predators far away, an incredible sense of smell allowing them to sense if a predator is nearby & last but not least the ability keep their eyes open when they sleep just in case the predators try to swallow them up while they’re sleeping.
Rabbits live in burrows they dig with their strong nails. Rabbits are herbivores so they eat grass and other plants. A cute but a little hectic innate behaviour of the rabbit is spinning while hopping. This means they are happy & joyful. Another innate behaviour of rabbits is running in circles.
This means they are mature. Another innate behaviour is thumping the ground with their feet this means they are not happy about something, or scared of something. Another angry behaviour of a rabbit is grunting. This can also mean that they feel they are threatened of something. The rabbit’s learned behaviour for building their homes is digging the forest ground. These burrows are about 4.5 meters / 15 feet deep.
They dig these burrows for protection (like any other home) from other predators who can’t reach them like birds or foxes. When they go to get some food and some animal tries to eat them they can just run right back into their burrow. Rabbits like I said before have many self defence behaviours. Rabbits use their big & long ears to detect predators approaching. Rabbits ears can hear up to 3.
2 km / 2 miles distance & unlike the ordinary human’s ears they can hear high pitched sounds & other sounds that we can’t hear. When their ears are at work their ears move back and forth to “sense” exactly where the predator is. But when their ears aren’t working they are relaxed on their back. Rabbits are very fast thanks to their strong hind legs.
These legs are capable of jumping up to 0.6 meters / 2 feet high. They can also “run” up to 72 kilometres per hour / 44 miles per hour When they escape from their predators they jump / hop in a zig zag pattern. This behaviour helps them lose their predators easier or help him not get picked up by birds.
Not only do rabbits have amazingly strong hind legs they have a very long going stamina. This will help them run for a long time and in turn increasing their chance of survival from other predators. Rabbits also use their 360 degrees vision to keep alert at all times and on top of that they can see really far away objects. The long vision will help them know if a predator is coming or not from a safe distance.
But thats not all. Rabbits keep their eyes open when they sleep so they can see if predators are coming to kill them while they’re asleep. Rabbit’s eyes are on the sides of their head allowing each eye to see in an almost 180 degrees. But of having 360 degrees vision also comes with a lot of faults.
They can’t see objects clearly that are right in front of them. Rabbits have an amazing sense of smell. They have over 50 million cells to enable them to smell. That is almost 8 times better than the human’s nose (6 million). This amazing sense of smell in the wild is an amazing advantage especially for prey animals. It allows them to know if an animal or predator has been nearby or is nearby.
Other behaviours for protection is building / digging holes for safety or a shelter. These holes are about 4.5 meters / 15 feet deep and are located in the forest. When the rabbit is attacked while eating the rabbit can use this as protection from the predator.