Beyond the Fluff: The Incredible Survival Skills of Rabbits

This 10 Minute Tuesday episode explores the incredible adaptations and superpowers of rabbits; highlighting their speed, agility, and survival strategies that make them true super-powered superheroes of the animal kingdom.
 
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Learn more about Rabbits:
PBS Nature - Rabbits Facts

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Podcast Music: Positive Carefree Folk Pop
Artist: Burgberg
Used with Full Music Standard Lic.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I do not know why DC and Marvel have been sleeping on the best superhero, one that is right here, native to our planet, no radioactive dust needed. Yes, keep your mutant wolverine or your your person from another planet who gets weak when a rock from his planet is on our planet. Keep your radioactive spider and definitely keep your billionaire bat boy who's obsessed with toys because without him, he's not much of anything. If you haven't guessed, if you don't know, I'm I'm kind of surprised. I'm clearly I'm talking about the I'm Rick Schwartz, educator, public speaker, and all-around curious guy. Over the years, my curiosity and experiences, along with the many people I have worked with, revealed to me we all have a desire to feel connected to the natural world. You're listening to Animals, Nature, and You, a podcast that explores a connection between animals, nature, and humans. A podcast that celebrates learning more, following our curiosity, and reconnecting with the natural world. Welcome to the 10-minute Tuesday here on Animals, Nature, and You. Of course, I'm your host, Rick Schwartz, and as always, I'm very glad you're here. This particular episode, the theme of this episode, was inspired from a direct message I received from one of my former students, gosh, probably three, four weeks ago. And the whole premise of this starts with a lecture I used to give when students would inevitably want to talk about an animal for wildlife education that is not a domestic rabbit or a goat or these animals that you can see on a farm. And I understand that as a student getting into zoology, getting into doing wildlife education, you get excited about the spotted cat or the hawk or the talking bird, and there's all these cool, unique adaptations that, you know, I can see a bunny rabbit at a farm or I had a rabbit growing up as a kid, whatever it might be, it doesn't seem as exciting because you have been so saturated with the existence of that animal in your life, it seems rather normal and not very exciting. My argument always was this imagine yourself minding your own business, down salad bar with your family, having a little snacky snacky, and then suddenly you hear a sound that nobody else can hear. Stand up straight, switch your ear a little bit, because your ears can rotate between the two of them, basically full 360. They each independently rotate and move differently about 270 degrees. Your vision allows you to see the entire world around you. Yes, you do have to give a little bit of binocular vision. You have a very narrow binocular view, but not only can you see almost a full 360 around you, you can also see up and you see very clear at great distances, allowing you to see somebody like a hawk coming down towards you. Now, let's say this hawk coming down towards you and your family, the hawk is locked in on you, and you're like, Well, I'm too far from the den. So I'm gonna have to see if I can just maybe hunker down. The hawk is barreling down at you, you're sitting there real quiet. Please don't see me, please don't see me. It's clear with your awesome vision that a hawk is coming right for you. You make a split hair decision. You decide right there in the moment right as a hawk is closing in on you, you jump straight up. Most rabbits can jump about six feet straight up from a standstill. So most rabbits on average at the shoulder are about a foot tall. If we were like that, if a human was like that, you're jumping 36 feet if you're six feet tall. On average, five to six feet tall. So from thirty to thirty-six feet straight up in the air. That's three stories. That's a three-story building. Okay. And if you are already moving, you can leap and clear upwards of twenty feet, eighteen to twenty feet. That's pretty impressive. Now, after you land from that jump to six feet, the hawk clearly is gonna miss you. The hawk is either gonna hit the ground or pull up at the last minute and have to come back around, giving you time then to reach your maximum speed of about 45 miles an hour to get into your little den or to escape the space. Now, you're not gonna hold 45 for a long time, but still that's your max. You can easily cruise at about 20 miles an hour. When you think about a fox or a coyote chasing a rabbit, that speed does matter. They can maintain that 20 miles an hour for a very long time and also throw in the zig and the zag, the zag and the zig. They can totally outmaneuver these ma these other mammals. They can, of course, things like wolves and coyotes can run for long distances for a long period of time. The rabbit, though, with its maneuvering, can often dissuade or deter or find then a place to go hide. I'm gonna run this way, run you away from my den, and then zigzag back over there and get down where you can't get me. There are so many cool adaptations that the rabbits have. We got their hearing covered, we got their eyesight covered. Pretty good sense of smell, but usually that's used for closer proximity to really narrow in their food because where their eyes are, they have a blind spot right in front of their nose. So the nose usually helps more with food finding and identifying their mates and their litter mates and their and their family more than making them aware of a predator. Nonetheless, pretty cool superpowers. And you think about that speed too. You say in bolt, I think he's like 27 miles an hour was his max, and that was for a very short period of time. On average, standard human running can run up to 12 to 15 miles an hour. That you're not going to sustain that for very long. Longer sustained running is closer to six miles an hour. Then if we try to zig and zag in that, like the rabbits do, that would be very, very difficult for us to maintain, and it would tire us out. The whole hopping mechanism, the way the back legs are structured on the rabbit allows for maximum efficiency of energy use, minimizing the body temperature going up, minimizing the use of resources, maximizing their ability to get the heck out of there. Now you might be like, well, Rick, haha, that's great, but they're the bottom of the food chain. Like everybody eats them. I mentioned it. Hawks, eagles, coyotes, fox, you you name it, bobcats, lynx. Everybody wants to snack on a bunny. So yeah, they they do not always succeed in their superpowers of getting away from a predator. I will argue this though. The species still exists. They're still here. They've got everybody trying to eat them, and they still exist. Now, of course, that might have to do with the fact that, well, they breed like bunnies. They make more quite a bit. So maybe it's just a numbers game. But I'd argue that numbers game also spills into surviving, being preyed upon by another animal. So when it comes back to then the whole reason this lecture existed many, many years ago in wildlife education, it was to point out to the students and hopefully then allow them to point out to their audiences, wherever they may be, that something that we might dismiss as, oh, it's just a rabbit, is us overlooking the incredible adaptations almost every single species has. It's up to us to pay attention. It's up to us to pay attention. It's up to us to make sure we're watching and being curious about the world around us so we can better interpret the amazing adaptations that are there in wildlife and nature. So, with that, we're gonna wrap this up. I want to quickly remind you that this podcast is an independent podcast and it does rely on your support. So if you found this interesting or fun, please feel free to share this. Whether it's the link on YouTube or wherever you're listening to your podcast, feel free to share this with others. It's really how this podcast has been growing, and I really appreciate that. Those of you who've been sharing this and who keep coming back, if you haven't, make sure you follow or subscribe. Every Thursday we have a brand new interview with an awesome person doing awesome things, and every Tuesday, 10 minute Tuesdays, just like this one. A little shorter solo episode for us to just again get down on one particular topic. Of course, Animals Nature and You is also on Instagram. You can find all the links and information down below for that. Animals Nature and U is also on Instagram, so the link is down below. Other links down there, my website, zoologyrick.com with my social media if you want to get a hold of me. And of course, as always, you are very welcome to leave a review, stars, whatever it might be, wherever you're listening or watching. I would appreciate it. It doesn't change anything in the ranking or algorithms, but it does give a little bit of social credit. It allows others who might be interested in these topics that are looking through it, doing a search, come across this episode or this podcast, and go, wow, all these people left reviews and stars must be good. I want to listen too. That's how we build our community. That's how we share our knowledge and our curiosity. So with that, thank you very much for joining me on this Curious Odyssey of Animals, Nature, and You. Have a good one, everybody.