What is the maximal age a European rabbit reaches?
An adult European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) usually gets as old as 18 years.
European rabbits are around 30 days in the womb of their mother. When born, they weight 39 grams (0.09 lbs) and measure 2.37 meter (7′ 10″). As a member of the Leporidae family (genus: Oryctolagus), a European rabbit caries out around 5 little ones per pregnancy, which happens around 4 times a year. Fully grown, they reach a bodylength of 40 cm (1′ 4″).
As a reference: Usually, humans get as old as 100 years, with the average being around 75 years. After being carried in the belly of their mother for 280 days (40 weeks), they grow to an average size of 1.65m (5′ 5″) and weight in at 62 kg (137 lbs), which is obviously highly individual.
The European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) or coney is a species of rabbit native to southwestern Europe (including Spain, Portugal and western France) and to northwest Africa (including Morocco and Algeria). It has been widely introduced elsewhere, often with devastating effects on local biodiversity. However, its decline in its native range (caused by the diseases myxomatosis and rabbit calicivirus, as well as overhunting and habitat loss), has caused the decline of its highly dependent predators, the Iberian lynx and the Spanish imperial eagle. It is known as an invasive species because it has been introduced to countries on all continents with the exception of Antarctica, and has caused many problems within the environment and ecosystems. Feral European rabbits in Australia have had a devastating impact, due in part to the lack of natural predators there.The European rabbit is well known for digging networks of burrows, called warrens, where it spends most of its time when not feeding. Unlike the related hares (Lepus spp.), rabbits are altricial, the young being born blind and furless, in a fur-lined nest in the warren, and they are totally dependent upon their mother. Much of the modern research into wild rabbit behaviour was carried out in the 1960s by two research centres. One was the naturalist Ronald Lockley, who maintained a number of large enclosures for wild rabbit colonies, with observation facilities, in Orielton, Pembrokeshire. Apart from publishing a number of scientific papers, he popularised his findings in a book The Private Life of the Rabbit, which is credited by Richard Adams as having played a key role in his gaining “a knowledge of rabbits and their ways” that informed his novel Watership Down. The other group was the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in Australia, where numerous studies of the social behavior of wild rabbits were performed. Since the onset of myxomatosis, and the decline of the significance of the rabbit as an agricultural pest, few large-scale studies have been performed and many aspects of rabbit behaviour are still poorly understood.
Animals of the same family as a European rabbit
Not really brothers and sisters, but from the same biological family (Leporidae):
- Marsh rabbit with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Swamp rabbit with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Tolai hare with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Japanese hare with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Burmese hare growing to a mass of 2.27 kgs (5 lbs)
- Scrub hare with 1 babies per pregnancy
- Brush rabbit with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Black jackrabbit growing to a mass of 1.27 kgs (2.8 lbs)
- Yunnan hare with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Cape hare with 2 babies per pregnancy
Animals that reach the same age as European rabbit
With an average age of 18 years, European rabbit are in good companionship of the following animals:
- Lowland paca usually reaching 16 years
- White-lipped peccary usually reaching 21 years
- Cougar usually reaching 20 years
- Large Indian civet usually reaching 20 years
- Verreaux’s sifaka usually reaching 20.58 years
- Japanese serow usually reaching 18.5 years
- Barbary sheep usually reaching 21 years
- Margay usually reaching 20 years
- Wild boar usually reaching 21 years
- Egyptian mongoose usually reaching 20 years
Animals with the same number of babies European rabbit
The same number of babies at once (5) are born by:
- Sagebrush vole
- Montane vole
- Wood mouse
- House mouse
- Tristram’s jird
- Kowari
- Garden dormouse
- Midday jird
- Alston’s cotton rat
- Meadow vole
Weighting as much as European rabbit
A fully grown European rabbit reaches around 1.59 kg (3.51 lbs). So do these animals:
- Gilbert’s potoroo weighting 1.57 kilos (3.46 lbs) on average
- Southern long-nosed armadillo weighting 1.5 kilos (3.31 lbs) on average
- Chacoan naked-tailed armadillo weighting 1.49 kilos (3.28 lbs) on average
- Common kusimanse weighting 1.39 kilos (3.06 lbs) on average
- Tolai hare weighting 1.59 kilos (3.51 lbs) on average
- Northern Luzon giant cloud rat weighting 1.75 kilos (3.86 lbs) on average
- African savanna hare weighting 1.77 kilos (3.9 lbs) on average
- Black-footed cat weighting 1.36 kilos (3 lbs) on average
- Malagasy civet weighting 1.86 kilos (4.1 lbs) on average
- Mongoose lemur weighting 1.77 kilos (3.9 lbs) on average
Animals as big as a European rabbit
Those animals grow as big as a European rabbit:
- White-eared opossum with 36 cm (1′ 3″)
- Aye-aye with 40 cm (1′ 4″)
- Rusty-spotted cat with 40.6 cm (1′ 4″)
- Tufted capuchin with 42.8 cm (1′ 5″)
- Lutrine opossum with 32.4 cm (1′ 1″)
- Subalpine woolly rat with 41.7 cm (1′ 5″)
- Burmese ferret-badger with 39.9 cm (1′ 4″)
- Northern brown bandicoot with 35.4 cm (1′ 2″)
- Sumatran striped rabbit with 37.7 cm (1′ 3″)
- Common brown lemur with 46.3 cm (1′ 7″)