Animal · Spain, Portugal, France
European rabbit
Oryctolagus cuniculus — the name this animal has in the language scientists everywhere share.
The European rabbit is the wild ancestor of all pet and farm rabbits, originally from Spain and Portugal. It lives in large underground burrow systems called warrens, often shared by many families.
Picture credit: Alexis Lours (CC BY 2.0) · Industrees (CC0) · Charles J. Sharp (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Wikimedia Commons
Where does the european rabbit live?
Home: Grasslands, farmland and dunes, native to Iberia and now found worldwide.
In the wild you find it in: Spain, Portugal, France, United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Chile.
Conservation status from the IUCN: close to being at risk.
The short profile
Fully grown it measures up to 40 cm long. It weighs about 2 kilograms. On the menu: plants.
The story behind it
A rabbit warren can house dozens of rabbits across a maze of interconnected tunnels with many entrances, giving quick escape routes from foxes and other predators. Rabbits have nearly 360-degree vision thanks to eyes set on the sides of their head, letting them watch for danger from almost every direction while grazing. They breed extremely quickly, which is why European rabbits introduced to Australia in the 1800s exploded into the billions and caused huge damage to farmland and native wildlife there. Ironically, in its native Iberian range the species has crashed due to disease and habitat loss, making the European rabbit near threatened overall despite thriving as an invasive species elsewhere.
Find it on the globe
European rabbit is there as a tiny animated figure that breathes and looks around. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.
It sits at its real coordinates, not near them — the same numbers listed in the facts above. Switch off the layer for this kind of place and it disappears again; the buttons for that are down the right-hand edge.
Questions children ask
Why did rabbits become a problem in Australia?
European rabbits brought to Australia in the 1800s bred so fast in the absence of natural predators that their numbers exploded into the billions, destroying crops and native plants across huge areas of the country.
Are wild rabbits endangered?
In their native home of Spain and Portugal, European rabbits have declined so much from disease and habitat loss that the species is now classed as near threatened overall, even though it thrives as an introduced species elsewhere.
How many baby rabbits can one female have?
A female European rabbit can have several litters of around 3 to 7 kits a year, and can become pregnant again almost immediately after giving birth, which is why rabbit populations can grow extremely quickly.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this page was checked against public reference sources before publication. Where sources genuinely disagree, the text says so.
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