Jackalope

[new to the flock]

They run wild over here, and are considered a real trophy.

[new to the flock]

another hard won trophy

[Axe]

Your 2 days too late.

[Frank]

Yeah, right

[new to the flock]

What and your little deer with fangs are any differant. Not to mention the other ones you have that eat out of garbage cans.

[new to the flock]

somemore pictures

Edited April 3, 2006 by new to the flock

[new to the flock]

another

[new to the flock]

and another

[new to the flock]

another

[magman]

horny little *******

[neilbe2]

what the hell are them? :o

[Ferret Master]

what the hell are them? :o

Jackalopes. :(

[new to the flock]

Okay,

 

The above was dealing with the mythical creature, the following deals with the VERY REAL CREATURE.

 

 

 

JACKALOPES: HORN-LIKE GROWTHS ON RABBITS AND HARES IS A REAL DISEASE

 

By Dan Japuntich (dajapuntich@yahoo.com)

 

Many years ago I was taking my children through the Science Museum of Minnesota in St, Paul. One of the biology exhibits showed jars of cottontail rabbits with cranial tumors shaped like horns, and these were presented with reference to the Jackalope legend. About 6 years ago, during a cottontail population boom in St. Paul, I was riding my bike along the Mississippi River and saw a number of rabbits in a meadow. At least two of them had growths on their heads. We are in rabbit population-boom years here in Minnesota (1998-99), and when I recently mentioned to some of my co-workers that these are good jackalope finding summers, they looked at me as if I was pulling their legs. I had thought that this knowledge about real horned rabbits as related to the Jackalope legend (the "raurackl", stag-hare legend in Germany) was fairly common. When I decided to research the subject, I found very little on the web. I did, however, come across Chuck Holliday's web page, where he has kindly attached this evolving article on horned bunnies and hares.

 

The center specimen in Hoefnagel's c. late 1550's copy of Albrecht Durer's famous rabbit picture looks just like the rabbits in the Science Museum of St. Paul and like the ones I saw on my bike ride. They do not look exactly like the taxidermist-modified rabbit jackalopes with deer antlers, but are close enough to make one do a double take. A good example of a real cottontail jackalope photograph from O.B. Lee (1965) is shown at the right. Gaspar Schott's (1667, p. 900) Lepores cornuti plate shows horned hares and treats them as a separate species, but a look at the horns shows them to be non-uniform and more like tumors. (Thanks to Manda Clair Jost for spotting the Schott plate and giving me a chance to play in the Rare Books Libraries, and, by the way, I am getting a translation of Schott's Latin text).

 

NOTE: More pictures of real jackalopes (cottontail rabbits infected with the Shope papillomavirus) are available here.

 

In June 1998, I called the Science Museum of MN resident biologist, Richard Oehlenschlager, who said that, while the old specimens are not on display at this time, they are still in the museum archives. He identified the tumors as being caused by a papillomavirus. This prompted me to do a little more investigation about papillomaviruses. I condensed my findings and added to the information contained in the class notes for PAT 707, Pathology of Laboratory Animals prepared by Trenton R. Schoeb, Department of Comparative Medicine University of Alabama at Birmingham; this information is no longer available on the www.

 

The growth of rabbit tumors in the shape of horns or antlers is a common rabbit disease called papillomatosis, caused by a papillomavirus. A papillomavirus is the same sort of disease that causes the growth of warts on humans. The disease is very common in cottontails.

 

The agent causing the growth of tumors in the shape of horns on the head of rabbits is the Shope papillomavirus, which was first reported in Shope (1933) (Genus Papillomavirus, family Papovaviridae). It is a natural disease in cottontail rabbits (the natural hosts, Sylvilagus floridanus) and is most common in Midwest and Great Plains states. Jackrabbits (Lepus sp.) are also susceptible. Since horned rabbit legends occur in America, Europe and Asia, it probably has a wide distribution. In the U.S.A., the distribution is shown in the included Kreider and Bartlett (1981) map, and the reasons responsible for this localization are unknown. As a natural disease in domestic rabbits it has been reported only from Southern California. Natural transmission probably occurs mostly via the rabbit tick Haemaphysalis leporis-palustris according to C.L. Larson (1936). Mosquitoes and reduviid bugs can also transmit and are a more likely source of infection in commercial rabbitries. In Minnesota, the horns are predominantly found on the head and neck, a location consistent with the passage of biting insects (Larson et al.,1936), while in Kansas they are predominant on the perineum on the rabbits' behind, but can occur on the head as well. The study of Shope papillomavirus as a viral cause of cancer has been ongoing for over 50 years, since one of its analogs in humans is genital warts. John Kreider, MD and other researchers at Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine have been using rabbits and this virus in research on cancer. The objective of their research program is two-fold: to determine the contribution of human papillomaviruses (HPV) to the development of uterine cervical cancer and to develop effective means for the prevention and treatment of infections. Kreider just recently retired, but he and his researchers eventually did develop a vaccine for HPV's. Other research into Shope papillomavirus is extensive, including DNA analyses of its forms. William Phelps (1985) did extensive work on the Shope virus by trapping wild cottontails in Minnesota and identifying two major viral-specific RNA species.

 

In his comprehensive review of the subject, Kreider (1981) included one of the original plates showing the "jackalope" specimens the great naturalist Ernest Thompson Seton (1937) had drawn during his early excursions (picture on right). According to the newspaper accounts referenced below, in 1990 the Museum of Natural History at the University of Kansas had an exhibit and a traveling road-show dealing with real jackalopes. This should come as no surprise, since John Kreider had numerous correspondence with E.R. Hall, one of the museum's mammalogists. According to Tom Swearingen, a director at the Museum, they have many interesting mounted specimens, and perhaps they will lend some images and history to this article. I have also talked again recently (7/99) with Richard Oehlenschlager at the Science Museum of MN, and he says he has a donated jackalope in his freezer. I will see if I can get some pictures.

 

We are in another rabbit population boom this year (1998) in St, Paul, and I'm going to be on the look-out for more jackalopes down near the Mississippi. This time I'm bringing my camera.

 

A note from Dan added 10/16/00 reads: I want you to know that we had two jackalope sightings in St. Paul this summer, but I have yet to get more than a distant picture of one. We have an overabundance of bunnies this year. Interestingly, the bunnies along the Mississippi River near my house have all but disappeared.

 

More pictures of real jackalopes (cottontail rabbits infected with the Shope papillomavirus) are available here.

 

A final note from Chuck: As it turns out, horns may be found in unusual places on a wide variety of normally-horned and hornless mammals, including humans (picture at left). They arise, as in rabbits, at the sites of benign, precancerous or cancerous skin growths, usually on sun-exposed skin, and are composed of keratin, the structural material in fingernails. The first report of such a human horn occurs in the European literature in 1599, and a much better-documented horn was received by the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, in 1685. This horn was one of several grown and shed by Mary Davis, then 69 years old. The original figure of Ms. Davis and her horn may be seen here and is also shown in an article by A. McGregor (1983). Several medical www sites present detailed information on human cutaneous horns; three are here, here, and here.

 

The site that this was taken from is here:

 

http://ww2.lafayette.edu/~hollidac/jackalope.html

 

the begining of the site deals with the myth, and the truth starts about 1/2 way down. Enjoy the mythical part as well, especially the tail of the photographer on his first Jackalope hunt.

 

There are many real photos on this site for anyone interested.

 

NTTF

Edited April 4, 2006 by new to the flock

[tommy trucker]

u can but them mounted on a shield on ebay.com (USA) :o :( :(

 

 

http://sporting-goods.search.ebay.com/Jack...sofocusZunknown

[kip270]

Imagine how big the warrens would be :o :(

[the last engineer]

:o :( :( you gots ta love canerda "A"

[new to the flock]

Did ya read the whole post boys?:o

[henry d]

I did and found out a lot on the web,this was particularly useful - The nucleotide sequence of the cottontail rabbit papillomavirus (CRPV or Shope papillomavirus) genome has been determined. The overall organization of the genome is similar to that of the other three papillomaviruses already sequenced. The amino acid sequences of the putative viral proteins were compared to the available protein data banks. Of particular interest is the homology found between the COOH terminus of the E2 putative protein of the different papillomaviruses and the viral or cellular mos oncogene product. This analysis also reveals a specific feature of the rabbit virus that may be related to its natural oncogenic potential. One of its open reading frames (E6) shows significant homologies with the ß subunit of a family of ATP synthases from mitochondria, chloroplasts, and bacteria, including the conservation of amino acids residues involved in nucleotide binding. The viral noncoding region includes a highly A+T-rich segment and shows a complex array of repetitions and inverted repeats that may act as control elements for gene expression and genome replication.

warts m8 warts :o

[new to the flock]

:o well done Henry, however instead of thinking of a wart make up, think of the horns as made out of the same material as your fingernails...so alittle tougher than a wart. :(

[henry d]

This was(no really,it was)interesting,but the pictures are a bit off putting,Barf

http://www.medirabbit.com/EN/Skin_diseases...s/papilloma.pdf