Cute Widdo Guy

Yeah, I’m sure all of you are just about overcome with affection and warmth for this cute widdo guy. Probably because you’re thinking it’s the sweetest little baby bunny you ever saw, perched atop a checked tablecloth.

Wrong.

This is an image from a recent cable news feed from the central west district of Western Australia. It is a photo shot from a crop-duster plane high above a gridded Perenjori wheat farm, on the pilot’s daring near approach to a gargantuan hare running amok across the planted hectares of farmland.

Rabbits have infested Australia since the 1860s. Brought in by a former Brit as sport hunting game, they arrived in a habitat ideally suited to them, with few natural predators. As a result, millions of bunnies soon covered the outback. The specimen we see here happens to be one of the largest ever recorded. Local leporidopterists estimate him — or her: no one’s gotten close enough to check gender — to be about 50 meters (165 feet) in overall length and roughly 20,000 kilograms (22 tons) in weight, bounding about on four very unlucky rabbit’s feet!