Jackalopes.. are real

It turns out everybodies favorite mythical critter hoax.. is real.

ww2.lafayette.edu...
ww2.lafayette.edu...

It turns out that it's virus (Shope papillomavirus)

Never heard of this before but I am confused, these are just

jackalopes: Rabbits infected with the Shope papillomavirus.

And you say

It turns out everybodies favorite mythical critter hoax.. is real.

No it's not real its a rabbit with a virus, as you say on the end of your post lol!

Nice find though dude

I believe you're splitting "hairs". Disease or not, the horns are present, hence the moniker "Jackalope".

Rabbits are very susceptible to disease. As I remember, every year in my childhood we had a new brood of bunnies and most died before reaching adulthood. Mainly from disease. Who knows, they could have very well had this disease. I never really looked that hard.

jackolopes are NOT real

BUT i was at gander mountain(A big outdoors gear store)
an they sell jackalope jerky

ps. it taste like a waterballoon filled mith mash potatos

Those tumor/growth things... were the creepiest oddities I've ever seen.... Thanks for scarring me for life dude. ^_^

o well disease or not they still look cool

I just remember this from that old DOS game Redneck Rampage, .

anyone else remember that game?

came out in the 90's.

It was an awfully strange but fun game.

thats the only place I have ever heard of a jackalope. Redneck Rampage rides again in Arkansas or something .

Wow!

THats amazing. I had allways heard of the jackalope, and never though it anything other than a sort of inside joke for a lot of people.

But it turns out that its, in essence, real! Amazing!

Those poor rabbits though, those growths look horrible.

It is generally believed that the legend of the jackalope was inspired by sightings of such rabbits infected with the Shope papillomavirus, a common but temporary fibromatosis.

For all intensive purposes a real Jackalope a rabit with horns or antlers.

Well this would make a very big Jackalope.

I think ive seen that rabbit on TV before isnt it like 40 lbs?

Originally posted by Sauron
Well this would make a very big Jackalope.

I have heard of jackalopes, hoop snakes and snipes. I have even seen killer rabbits (Monty Python), but I have never ever heard of a rabbit attaining such a massive size!

In Texas, rabbit makes good eats!

Of course "jackalopes" are real. I know. I actually saw one. Heck, I actually held an actual jackalope in my hands!

When I was growing up in the Detroit area in the 1960's, every six weeks or so, I would go to "Bob the Barber". Besides being a barber, it would seem, judging from all of the hunting magazines that fascinated me while waiting to "have my melon peeled", that Bob was also a hunter. Of course that became self-evident from the conversations around Bobs' when Michigan deer hunting season came around. As a kid of nine or ten, I found the conversation, speckled with forbidden (but familiar) words, held my interest as Bob would talk about hunting -- and killing -- one animal or another with his buddies.

I always wondered how the same three or four guys all could hang around a barber shop no matter when I dropped in. I couldn't understand why they weren't at work or something. But I finally reasoned that they were "professional" hunters who were independantly well off from their hunting exploits. Anyway, one of my favorite stories was of the day when Bob bagged a jackalope. The story was filled with tracking lore and superhuman skill and endurance. It would seem that the elusive jackalope is not an "easy kill". Of course, if they were, then it wouldn't be considered mythical.

It would have been easy to dismiss Bob's story if it weren't for one little fact.....he had killed and stuffed one. Lucky for Bob that he was also a taxidermist, eh?

I will never forget the day that Bob actually let me hold his trophy -- a perfectly preserved jackalope; body of a jackrabbit with a full rack of antlers. It was a sight to behold.

I will never know what ever happened to Bob. It was the sixties, after all, and long hair became the fashion for men. I stopped going to Bob's (against the protests of my Mom) and, one day, Bob's was closed. I never mourned the closing of his neighborhood barber shop. I suppose that I figured that he only gave haircuts to while away his time between hunting seasons but after bagging a jackalope, can there really be any more adventure to be had from hunting? No, I doubt it. The jackalope would surely be the pinnacle of any hunters goals and the most treasured of all trophy's.

Yes, the jackalope is real and, based upon a great hunting and wildlife authority -- Bob -- the Northern Michigan woods practically teem with this the wiliest of all beasts

Originally posted by benevolent tyrant

I will never forget the day that Bob actually let me hold his trophy -- a perfectly preserved jackalope; body of a jackrabbit with a full rack of antlers. It was a sight to behold.

"Those tumor/growth things... were the creepiest oddities I've ever seen..."

So they have antlers.. but are you saying that antlers are actually a disease? Maybe its just the rabbit evolving.

Originally posted by Techsnow

Originally posted by benevolent tyrant

I will never forget the day that Bob actually let me hold his trophy -- a perfectly preserved jackalope; body of a jackrabbit with a full rack of antlers. It was a sight to behold.

"Those tumor/growth things... were the creepiest oddities I've ever seen..."
So they have antlers.. but are you saying that antlers are actually a disease? Maybe its just the rabbit evolving.

I'm not saying that antlers are a disease, nor am I saying that rabbits are, in this case, evolving. What I AM saying is that there really isn't any such creature as a jack-a-lope. In tongue and cheek fashion, by recounting the incident of my youth, I am trying to express that Bob the Barber, a hunter and taxidermist, actually fashioned the jack-a-lope from a large rabbit and a deer. This should have been quite clear to you and anyone else reading my post.

Except for Bob the Barbers' trophy, there is no such thing as a jack-a-lope.

Ewwwww! look at these ww2.lafayette.edu...

Yes it seems the myth has been hiding in plain site! seems quite absurd that no one has put two and two together, although while the origin of the myth is now clearly based on a factual rabbit's disease, the jackalope is inherently not a species, they are still rabbits.

And just for your your pleasure, here is a reputable source on the virus

www.pnas.org...

[edit on 26-6-2006 by Shadow88]

Oh no LOL, they are REAL.

Now I wonder if Snipes are real. When I was a kid we would go jackalope hunting and snipe hunting.

That looks painful...

Jackalopes were a nice little hobby of mine for a bit. Though I would like to believe that my favorite little antlered critter was real, I have to say they are mythological creatures. The papylon, was it called, or something like that, really looks nothing like antlers. Though I've seen in several areas stuffed 'Lopes and such, I know that you could easily make one. Even though I have a friend who claims to have saw one during a hunting trip, thet're mythical.

Originally posted by MauiStacey
... When I was a kid we would go jackalope hunting and snipe hunting.

snipe hunting? ... not even gonna go there.

the stories abound ... ... but, no. I can't.

oh, the days gone bye ... :shk: