Horned Hares – A Potted (Or Should That Be Jugged?) History!

Posted by: Karl Shuker on September 5th, 2013

It is well known that one of North America’s most popular legendary icons, the jackalope, originated in traditional lumberjack folklore but was first given a physical reality as recently as the 1930s when the earliest confirmed taxiderm specimen was artfully manufactured from a jack rabbit (technically a species of hare) and some pronghorn antelope horns by Douglas Herrick from Wyomimg, who was subsequently dubbed the ‘Father of the Jackalopes’. Less well known, however, is that Europe also has a longstanding tradition of such creatures, but here they are termed horned hares. Until as recently as the late 18th Century, the authors of many of the early pre-scientific animal encyclopedias, or bestiaries as they were called then, still believed in the existence of fabulous beasts that nowadays have long been dismissed as non-existent fauna of folklore and legend – such as unicorns, dragons, satyrs, and mermaids. Another of these now-discounted creatures, far less dramatic than those listed above, yet no less intriguing, and often depicted in European bestiaries, was the horned hare.

Dr Karl Shuker and his horned hare

Indeed, its reality was so readily accepted by naturalists at that time that it even received its own formal Latin name – Lepus cornutus(‘horned hare’). A number of highly-prized stuffed specimens also existed, usually proudly displayed in hunting lodges or in private collections of unusual natural history exhibits known as cabinets of curiosities. So did – or does – the horned hare have any basis in reality?

Further details can be found here on my ShukerNature blog.

Karl Shuker About Karl Shuker
My name is Dr Karl P.N. Shuker. I am a zoologist (BSc & PhD), media consultant, and the author of 25 books and hundreds of articles, specialising in cryptozoology and animal mythology. I have a BSc (Honours) degree in pure zoology from the University of Leeds (U.K.), and a PhD in zoology and comparative physiology from the University of Birmingham (U.K.). I have acted jointly as consultant and major contributor to three multi-author volumes on cryptozoology and other mysterious phenomena. I am the Life Sciences Consultant to The Guinness Book of Records/Guinness World Records (Guinness: London, 1997-present day), and was consultant to Monsters (Lorenz Books: London, 2001), as well as a contributor to Mysteries of the Deep (Llewellyn: St Paul, 1998), Guinness Amazing Future (Guinness: London, 1999), The Earth (Channel 4 Books: London, 2000), and Chambers Dictionary of the Unexplained (Chambers: London, 2007). I appear regularly on television & radio, was a consultant for the Discovery TV series Into the Unknown, and a question setter for the BBC's quiz show Mastermind. I am a Scientific Fellow of the Zoological Society of London, a Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society, a Member of the Society of Authors, and the Cryptozoology Consultant for the Centre for Fortean Zoology (CFZ). I have written articles for numerous publications, including Fortean Times, The X Factor, Paranormal Magazine, FATE, Strange Magazine, Prediction, Beyond, Uri Geller's Encounters, Phenomena, Alien Encounters, Wild About Animals, All About Cats, All About Dogs, Cat World, etc. In 2005, I was honoured by the naming of a new species of loriciferan invertebrate after me - Pliciloricus shukeri.


2 Responses to “Horned Hares – A Potted (Or Should That Be Jugged?) History!”

  1. PoeticsOfBigfoot responds:

    As a long-time traveler through the Southwest, I remember stopping in Stucky’s restaurants/gift shops all over the country and seeing postcards with jackalopes on them. They usually had something like “Greetings From Texas!” sprawling across them. Nice memories.

  2. alan borky responds:

    I’m a bit confused Karl.

    I’m guessin’ the weird lookin’ thing in the snap’s the jackalope but why’s the hare there?

    Also the link for this mentioned somethin’ about jugged hares.

    But that hare hasn’t got jugs it’s got horns.

    ps

    Love you!

Sorry. Comments have been closed.

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