Jackalope
The jackalope (Lepus temperamentalus) is a fictitious cross between a jackrabbit and an antelope (or sometimes a goat or deer), and is usually portrayed as a rabbit with antlers. It is also called the "Antelabbit", "horny bunny", or "Stagbunny". Some "propose" that it is a hybrid of the pygmy-deer and a species of killer-rabbit. Reportedly, Jackalopes are extremely shy unless approached. It has also been said that the Jackalope can convincingly imitate any sound, including the human voice. It uses this ability to elude pursuers. None have ever been captured alive.
Humor
Contrived mounted heads of jackalopes may be for sale in some novelty stores, particularly in the American West and great plains and on the World Wide Web; postcards with faked photos showing jackalopes are also published. The jackalope story is sometimes used by locals in these areas to play tricks on tourists.
This joke was employed by Ronald Reagan to reporters in 1980 during a tour of his California ranch. Reagan had a rabbit head with antlers, which he refered to as a "jackalope," mounted on his wall. Reagan liked to claim that he had caught the animal himself. Reagan's jackalope hangs on the ranch's wall to this day.
History
The jackalope legend in the U.S. is attributed by the New York Times to Douglas Herrick (1920-2003) of Douglas, Wyoming, in 1932. Postcards showing jackalopes were also sold in the U.S. in the 1930s. Horned rabbits abound in European and, particularly, German and Austrian, legends as the raurackl, rasselbock and wolpertinger. All of these legends are probably inspired by rabbits infected with a virus (Shope papillomavirus) which causes hornlike growths in various places on their heads and other parts of the body. The many illustrations of horned hares shown in scholarly works by European naturalists in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries (engraved plates for the Encyclopédie Méthodique, 1789, for example), were probably similarly inspired.
A jackalope character was featured in the U.S. television show America's Funniest People, where it would laugh a lot while playing mean tricks on people.
The comic strip Bloom County had as one of its characters Rosebud the Basselope, a cross between a basset hound and an antelope.
External links, resources, references
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- : Museum of Hoaxes
- : Prof. Chuck Holliday
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- : Douglas, Wyoming
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- http://ww2.lafayette.edu/~hollidac/jacksforreal.html : pictures of papillomavirus rabbits
