CONTACT: Julie Navejar
kajam03@tamuk.edu or 361-593-2590

Animal Behind The Legend Found Near Bruni

KINGSVILLE (September 9, 2002) — Wildlife researchers at Texas A&M University-Kingsville were thrilled and shocked last week when a Bruni resident showed up at their doorstep with an animal that lives mostly in legend.

Anna Chapa lives in the Bruni are with her husband, Beto, who discovered this unusual animal while hunting between Hebbronville and Laredo. Anna took the animal to her vet and he suggested seeing if Texas Parks and Wildlife was interested. Instead, she brought the animal to A&M-Kingsville.

The strange animal is what is known as a jackalope or a jackrabbit with horns, the legendary cross between a jackrabbit and an antelope. The jackalope is actually a small jackrabbit with tumors probably caused by the Shope papillamavirus, a disease common to rabbits.

The tumors are normally located around the head and neck giving the rabbit the appearance of antelope-type spiked horns. The rabbit brought in not only has the spiked tumors around his head, but also has them under his chin and on his back and stomach.
Neither Dr. Steven Lukefahr, animal science professor, nor Dr. Scott Henke, wildlife science associate professor, had ever seen a jackalope specimen before.

They said there are several reasons most people never get to see a jackalope. The Shope papillamavirus is a form of cancer; the tumors can grow around the mouth preventing the rabbit from eating and the virus leaves the rabbit in a weakened state leaving it more vulnerable to predators. Because of these three reasons, the rabbits with the virus don't live long; therefore, humans don't have the opportunity to see them.

Researchers think rabbits get the disease from a rabbit tick that carries it. Mosquitos and reduviid bugs also can transmit the disease which is probably how the disease is transmitted in commercial rabbit herds.

The legend of the jackalope dates back centuries. The oldest reference to a jackalope or horned rabbit comes from a German painting from the late 1500s by Joris Hoefnagel.
Lukefahr has several "jackalopes" in his office ranging from one that is the head of one of his All-Tex rabbits with a real pair of deer antlers to a stuffed rabbit with a pair of plastic antlers.

-TAMUK-