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Giant Rabbits

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Anonymous

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Growing up I always heard stories about giant rabbits. My dad and uncle swear that they saw two of them in a swampy area one day and that they were hip high to a man when in crouching position. My dad is average height about 5'11 so and my uncle is a big guy over six feet. So hip high on them is a very large rabbit. Has anyone else ever heard of this?
 
Perhaps they mistook Wallabies for giant rabbits... or it was just another pooka sighting
 
There's a movie called IIRC "Nigth of the Lepus", about giant rabbits or hares. Perhaps your dad was just kidding. IMHO.
 
There was a pooka scare in Durham when I was in the 4th year and a group of us used to wait for the bus next to the graveyard after BAYS meetings.

Kath
 
Why would anyone be afraid of a pooka? I thought that they were supposed to be tricksters but fairly benign. I really don't know anything about them. Of course my sister swears she has seen a house cat larger than my Beagle prowling around her neighborhood, I told her it was probably a bobcat but she swears in looks like a domestic. Maybe to pookas just follow us around tricking us.
 
gl5210 said:
Why would anyone be afraid of a pooka? I thought that they were supposed to be tricksters but fairly benign. I really don't know anything about them. Of course my sister swears she has seen a house cat larger than my Beagle prowling around her neighborhood, I told her it was probably a bobcat but she swears in looks like a domestic. Maybe to pookas just follow us around tricking us.
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I have a cat bigger than a beagle, btw. Anyway, I just want to point out that pookas can look like any sort of creature, not just rabbits. You can blame Harvey for inserting the rabbit look into the mainstream.
 
I think if you are 6 fourteen year old girls just about anything in a graveyard after darl is pretty scarey.... OK, we were just total wimps :p

Kath
 
Off the subject but as a teen occasionally ended up hanging out in the graveyard, never really bothered me. Even went to one that was reportedly haunted. I find the living humans much more terrifying myself. And I have to say Love the movie Harvey.

I can believe a person can have a cat that large, I should have said my beagle is large for a beagle. Taller and stockier than average, I'm not quite sure he's pureblood as he is a stray.

Who knows maybe dad made the whole thing up, though this is out of character. I have asked him periodically if he was making it up and he always stuck by the story. But it has been ten years so maybe he'll admit to a fabrication. Reading the cryptozoology just peaked my interest. You never know when people have had similiar experiences.
 
If thery can have a breeding population of escaped Wallabies in Yorkshire why not in Alabama?
 
sninik said:
If thery can have a breeding population of escaped Wallabies in Yorkshire why not in Alabama?
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That reminds me of those Warner Bros. cartoons where Sylvester the cat meet the baby kangaroo and thinks it's a giant mouse. I don't really think people could confuse a roo with a rabbit. They only look similar in cartoons, not real life. So, I am betting it was just a joke. Maybe gl5210 can ask his dad. If he says it's real then, maybe the creature or manifestation has been around for a while and somebody else has seen it. What do you think?
 
I spoke with my dad about the rabbits, he confirmed that it is true. No it was not a wallaby. He heard about them for years and locally they are called cane rabbits or swamp rabbits. (as they live in the swamp). I looked up a picture of a wallaby and I don't see how anyone could confuse the two. My parents have a rather large amount of land and wild rabbits are often seen in the back yard that are quite large, but not unusually so. He stated that the rabbits he saw were easily five times bigger than the wild rabbits that live on their property. It is just outside of this rural area of Alabama I have never heard of giant rabbits. And was curious as to where anyone else had heard of this.
 
gl5210 said:
He heard about them for years and locally they are called cane rabbits or swamp rabbits. (as they live in the swamp). I looked up a picture of a wallaby and I don't see how anyone could confuse the two
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When in doubt, pull out the references. I don't have any specialist works on rabbits, but according to my *Encyclopedia of Mammals,* the swamp rabbit (sylvilagus aquaticus) is the largest of the cottontails. Their range is described as East Texas, eastern Oklahoma, Alabama, northwest South Carolina, and southern Illinois. The swamp rabbit is a strong swimmer. No individual size information is given, but the stats on the genus are as follows:

head-body-length: 250-450 mm; tail length: 25-60mm; weight 0.4-2.3 kg.

I can barely get along in English measurements and am hopeless at metrics, so I have no idea if the top sizes there are high enough; however, freakishly big individuals and local populations cannot be discounted on the basis of a general reference. Also, I have often noticed that wild animals always look bigger than you expect them to be.
 
Thanks so much. I never heard of giant rabbits except where I grew up.
 
It's nice to see that the rabbits are real. I've seen some really big rabbits recently and my kid likes them a lot. So, I had the image of my baby hugging one enormous rabbit and it was the loveliest thing. Of course, a swamp rabbit could be in dire need of a bath, don't you think?
 
I grew up on mobile county. As for the swamp rabbit that attacked carter the one my dad saw was much larger. I no loger live there, and if the rabbits have survived the urban sprawl that has invaded that area I would be surprised.
 
Please excuse the spelling typed fast and posted before I proof read.
 
gl5210 said:
I don't think they have Wallabies in Alabama.
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What's with the geological clusters on these boards? Britain, Australia, and the Southern U.S. Must be lye lines or whatnot.
 
Do you think maybe because Brits settled Australia and heavily in Southern U.S. that we are more similiar culturally and therefore are interested in similiar topics and ideas. Just a thought.
 
I saw this monster on the weekend.
Note the red eyes and the hungry look.
Sends a shiver down my spine just thinking about it.:p
 
I mentioned this before but it was quite a while ago and I can't find the thread now (I'm sure it was a special giant rabbit thread)
My sister claimed to have seen a giant rabbit sitting by the side of the road as she was driving, this would have been somewhere in S england ( I don't remember where she was living at the time) it was the size of a deer but rabbit shape, definitely larger than the biggest type of domestic rabbit.
 
Never seen anything like that, but we do get some strange animal types around here. I've seen all-black squirrels, albino skunks, skunks with inverted-colors, some deformed frogs and tortoises, and earthworms that had to be at least two feet in length. There's also a town nearby that's supposed to be the albino squirrel capitol of the world, but I've yet to see one of those.

Oh, and I also live in the South, sort of (Southwest Missouri, North in the war but largely considered South regardless).
 
I saw a very large albino squirrel at a park across town and my sister has one living in her tree. The squirrels in my yard are not albino, just very annoying. People think I strange that I don't like them.
 
Kind of related

Rabbit the size of 3 yr old

A 27-pound rabbit from Holland is believed to be the world's longest rabbit, according to a Local 6 News report.

Roberto the 2-year-old Continental Giant is almost 4 feet long and sleeps on a dog's bed because he can't fit into a normal-sized hutch. Roberto is larger most 3-year-old children, according to the report.

Although Roberto is believed to be the world's biggest bunny, Guinness World Records said it has stopped listing "biggest animal" titles out of fear that it may lead to people deliberately overfeeding their pets to win the coveted title.

Continental Giant rabbits can live for up to 12 years, suggesting that with at least 10 years left, Roberto may still have a bit of growing to do.
 
Marion said:
I mentioned this before but it was quite a while ago and I can't find the thread now (I'm sure it was a special giant rabbit thread)
My sister claimed to have seen a giant rabbit sitting by the side of the road as she was driving, this would have been somewhere in S england ( I don't remember where she was living at the time) it was the size of a deer but rabbit shape, definitely larger than the biggest type of domestic rabbit.
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Didn't there used to be a colony of wallabies in the Peak District? I know it's not exactly S England, but if they can survive in Derbyshire, surely they can survive down south? Maybe that was what your sister saw.
 
Peni said:
head-body-length: 250-450 mm; tail length: 25-60mm; weight 0.4-2.3 kg.
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450mm is a little under a foot and a half. hardly giant - about the same size as a hare.


marion, if what your sister saw was the size of a deer and she saw it in southern england, it probably was a deer. when they sit down i guess they can look vaguely like a large rabbit, perhaps, erm... but if she was driving she can't have had that good a look.

as an aside, when my parents were giving me driving lessons we used to go around rural areas (because that's where they live) in the evenings (because that's when they are not at work). i'm sure it was more than once i had the shit scared out of me by animals (deer, rabbits, hares) running across the road, but the worst was a fucking barn owl. i nearly hit the bastard, it sort of swooped down over the car. i'm sure it saw the L-plate and thought it would have a bit of a laugh scaring the teenage driver.
 
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