Interesting: Rabbits pygmy?

At the Oregon zoo (USA) came to an end a 12-year program for breeding one of the rarest species of rabbit -14 animals from the last litter released into the wild.





Rabbit-pygmy listed in the Red book. Different breed tiny size is the smallest American species. Since 2004, is practically absent in the wild. Rabbit-pygmy has a body length of 22 to 28 cm, and weighs from 250 to 450 g. habitat — North-West of the USA (States of Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Nevada, and Northern California). The color of the upper body and ears are gray with a brown impurity. The belly is white. Rabbit-pygmy digs burrows, which appear naked and blind offspring. The average number of pups born in one litter is six.





The zoo management reported that the aim of the programme was the restoration of the breed in a natural environment.As it turned out, breeding pygmy was not easy, because a genetic change among surviving individuals was small, which makes the offspring weak.





To help solve this problem could monospecific relatives of rabbits-pygmies from pool of the Columbia the rabbits from Idaho and Oregon. Of a population of rabbits that live in different habitats separated from each other for over 10 thousand years.

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