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China and other Asian countries celebrate the Lunar New Year today, this year under the sign of the rabbit. A mammal renowned for its fecundity.
Hot bunny! The reputation ofOryctolagus cuniculus is not usurped. With 3 to 5 litters, a doe can give about fifty young rabbits per year. As soon as the female has given birth, after a month of gestation, she is again available for the male. It’s almost endless, but it’s no coincidence.
“In nature, in general, and to simplify, there are two main types of animal reproduction », explains Violaine Nicolas-Colin, teacher-researcher at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris and director of the Institute of Systems, Evolution and Biodiversity. ” We have what scientists call the K strategy: long-lived animals, which will have long gestation periods, which will give birth to few young, and which will take care of them for a long time – the elephant for example. And then there are the R strategies: we are going to give birth to a lot of babies, and the mortality will be high. »
High child mortality
It is to this second category that the wild rabbit belongs (whose life expectancy in the wild does not exceed 5 years): it is because the mortality of young rabbits is high that they reproduce as much – only about 20% of young rabbits reach adulthood. Rabbits are also the target of many viruses.
Rabbits can wreak havoc. Australia has experimented with it… And we have known, for a few months, thanks to genetics, the precise origin of this invasion: a British colonist, in 1859, “ a hunter, who had decided to introduce rabbits “says Violaine Nicolas-Colin. ” They were 12 when they boarded, and 24 when they arrived in Australia. The rabbit has no predators in Australia. The climate there is favorable. Rabbits can therefore reproduce there all year round. The spread was 100 kilometers per year! The rabbit is thus at the origin of the disappearance of many plant species. He overgrazes so much that there is no more vegetation, which leads to soil erosion. »
No carrot, but droppings
The rabbit is not a rodent (like the rat or the mouse) but a lagomorph. Its large ears allow it to regulate its temperature. Contrary to popular belief, he does not bite into carrots. To fill up on vitamins, he must eat his droppings. “ The rabbit eats a lot of herbaceous, woody plants with a lot of cellulose », specifies Violaine Nicolas-Colin. ” But the bad thing about rabbits is that all nutrients have to pass through the small intestine to be absorbed. The animal will make caecotrophs, all soft droppings, which it ingests again. It passes a second time through its digestive tract where it can be completely assimilated by the body. »
Then emerge harder and black droppings, the only ones left by rabbits and which betray their presence, increasingly rare in Europe. In France, in 50 years, the population of rabbits has been divided by 10, due to diseases and urbanization.
“Can you eat cute rabbits? »
We hunt them and above all, we breed them. The rabbit is the only livestock originating in Europe, Spain precisely. Its domestication is late. In the Middle Ages, in France, the Church authorized the consumption of rabbit during Lent by assimilating it to fish. But its nutritional qualities bring it closer to poultry. Among the Jews, on the other hand, it is forbidden to eat it. During the Second World War, in the United States, the breeding of rabbits was encouraged. Today, it is the Italians who consume the most. China has become the world’s largest rabbit producer. It’s going to be his party this year!