The giant statues of Easter Island have been a mystery for centuries.
Now the mystery of the Easter Bunny‘s evolutionary history has been solved.
Bones of the whopping ancestor to the rabbit were found on a small island off the coast of Spain. It wasn’t quite as big as a T. Rex skeleton, but it was impressive none the less.
The Nuralagus rex—”the Minorcan king of the hares” — didn’t hop like the bunnies of today, had much smaller ears and was six times larger than the average cotton-tailed hopper. With no known predators on its isle, the N. Rex didn’t need the speed of today’s fast-hopping rabbits nor the giant floppy ears to hear the hungry carnivores approaching. Life was truly a beach for the prehistoric rabbit.
The three-million year-old-version of the rabbit may have averaged 26 pounds per hare, but that still isn’t as large as Ralph, the world’s freakishly large rabbit.