Let’s Hear it for Leporidae

This being the first ever March the First with a post on Ghulf Genes, I wish to honor one of the families of the Mammalian class, of the phylum Vertebrata, superphylum Chordata, of the kingdom of Animalia. This is the family that shelters both rabbits and hares. Hares are bigger and belong to the genus Lepus; rabbits are smaller and their genera are also many (eight), of which the genus Sylvilagus is closest to me in daily experience, the classification of the Cottontail. From Spring (around the corner) until late Fall one or more members of this genus appears/appear somewhere on my property—else, to keep things balanced—let me just say that we both nest on the same minuscule area of the surface of the earth. March Hare and Mad Hatter thus inhabit the same space. As it should be.

My fascination with and love of the Leporidae is no secret to careful readers of this blog. The subject occurs here, here, and here. In the last of those posts I even claim to have been born on the Island of the Rabbits in Hungary. Biology, literature, and even sculpture celebrate these creatures. Herewith I show the March Hare from Alice in Wonderland, the first edition cover of Richard Adams’ Watership Down (courtesy of Wikipedia here), and proudly present a photograph of my own, taken last fall, of The Lord of the Rabbits of Grosse Pointe, Michigan, the biggest representative of this genre in my own neck of the woods.

Thus let us march into March.