Rabbit
by Olivia B.
Rabbits are mammals. They have different looks, shapes, and sizes. Some are big, and some are really little. The small rabbits can be as small as a guinea pig. Rabbits live almost every where in the world. Did you know that small wild rabbits live in Framingham? Those ones can’t be kept as a pet because they can carry rabies and other diseases. An interesting fact about rabbits is they have a pair of front teeth and a small pair in the back. I think it’s cool that you can teach rabbits to walk on leashes.
Rabbits evolved from vertebrates. A vertebrate is an animal with a backbone. Then they were gnathostomes (an animal with a jaw). They then turned into tetrapods, an animal with four limbs. They evolved into amniotes, a water tight egg. They did not lay their eggs on land anymore. Soon after they became synapsids, an animal with a hole behind the eye socket. After that they became mammals, with three ear bones, and now they’re a placental, a mammal that gives birth.
In the cladogram the rabbit is most closely related to the bat, lemur, whale, horse, mammoth, water pig, and the Irish elk. I figured this out by tracing the branch to the first node. I looked at all of the other animals that connect to that node. These animals are the animals that are most closely related to the rabbit. These animals all share that they are mammals. I found my answer by studying the cladogram and looking at all the traits they evolved that were in common. There are some differences between the rabbit and the other animals. For example the bat flies but the rabbit doesn’t. The lemur is huge and is not domesticated. The rabbit is small and trusts humans and other animals that are not in its own species.
Last updated April 7, 2007.