On Thu, 09 Apr 2009 20:46:41 GMT, brooklyn1 wrote:

> "Doug Freyburger" > wrote in message
> ...
>> Kenneth > wrote:
>>>
>>> Is not a hare a rabbit?
>>
>> They are a case of parallel evolution. They evolved
>> from unrelated ancestors into a common ecological
>> niche so from the outside they can be hard to tell
>> apart.
>>
>> Thanks to an Iron Chef America episode I finally
>> got to see rabbits and hares side by side already
>> skinned. Their meat looks very different. Rabbit
>> meat is lighter than chciken but slightly pink. Hare
>> meat is a dark reddish brown. I'm not sure how
>> different their flavor is.
>>
>> For folks interested enough in skeleton details to
>> have a microscope to measure tiny details there are
>> apparently enough differences in their skeletons to
>> suggest very different ancestry. Thanks to a display
>> in some science museum that I visited as a kid ...
>
> Methinks when you were born the Easter Bunny kicked you in the head.
> Rabbits and Hares are in the same order, Lepus. The rabbits most folks know
> and those used for food are hybridized... in nature they hybridized too but
> over millions of years, they copulated as Lepus are wont to do, just like
> hillybillys,

i suppose that's the reason you give for not being a copulator yourself.

blake