CIS Year 3- Animal Life Cycles

                               A Limerick about a Rabbit 

 

            I saw a crazy cartoon called Bugs Bunny 

            And I laughed so much because it was funny. 

            He always tricks the man,    

            And does all that he can, 

            He likes to coat elma fudd in honey. 

                                                               Raghd

 

Life Cycle of Rabbits

 

I am learning about rabbits, maybe there are lots of new things to learn. The male rabbit is called a buck, females rabbits are called a does and baby rabbits are called kits or kittens. Hundreds of years ago  rabbits werer called coneys, and baby coneys were called rabbits; the name coney was phased out and the word rabbit became used to represent both male and female adults. In Latin Rabbits are called leporide and are of the order lgopha. Rabbits are mammals therefore they give birth to live young. I chose rabbits because they are cute and I want to know more about rabbits. 

 

Most of the 60 breeds of domestic rabbits originated from Europe. More than half the world's population of rabbits live in North America. Rabbits are also native to South East Asia, some of the Japan Islands, Samatra, parts of Africa and South America. Rabbits can be found in most countries as tey were introduced. Countries like Australia has a pleague of rabbits due to early European settlers that brought rabbits there where they thrived.  Rabbits range in size from a tiny to huge, tiny being 2 kilos and huge being more than 5 kilos. Size really depends on the bread of the rabbit, but in general rabbits are much smaller than their often mistaken cousin the hare. The easiest way to distinguish a rabbit from a hare is that hares are bigger, faster, have bigger feet and longer ears than rabbits. 

 

    There are three stages to a rabbits life cycle as is the same for all animals: 

 

       

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First baby rabbits go out of the mother (born) then they are babies, they then suckle their mother's milk until they are big enough to eat grass.  Rabbits live to about 10 years of age (in captivity). Rabbits are often prey to other animals, the main preditors that eat rabbits are: foxs, dogs, wolves, eagles and owls.They run very fast and or hide to avoid being eaten. They are at the bottom of the food chain and rely on being fast to avoid being eaten. Apart from being comfort animals for people as pets, rabbits are only really used by people as food and previously to make rabbit fur coats.The rabbit's coat becomes thicker as they get older but generally stays the same colour from their original coat from when they are born. Rabbits eat grasses, and root vegetables. Globally, there are many rabbits that are considered pests like in America and Australia where they were introduced and have breed to plague proportions. the main difference between a rabbit and a hare is that a hare has longer ears and feet that a rabbit, it is also generally larger than a rabbit. Rabbits can hop a metre at a time. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Useful websites: