Easter is when rabbits — or, I should say, bunnies — take center stage. Easter egg baskets will be full of chocolate bunnies on Sunday, and pictures of cute baby rabbits in pastel shades will be plastered nearly everywhere.
Rabbits are perhaps the most prominent secular symbols of Easter, when Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ on the third day after his crucifixion on Calvary.
Probably a major reason that rabbits are prime Easter icons is that the holiday represents the time of rebirth and newness. Since ancient times, rabbits, like eggs, have been symbols of fertility and rebirth.
Rabbits give birth to large litters in the early spring and much of the rest of the year. That is especially true for Georgia’s most common rabbit species, the Eastern cottontail, the model for the Easter bunny.
It is a prolific breeder, producing as many as seven litters a year between early February and late September, with 80 percent of the young born from April to July. Male cottontails are polygamous, meaning they may have more than one mate at a time.
As many as nine 1-ounce baby cottontails are born blind and naked in a ground nest, usually just a depression lined with dry grasses, plant fibers and fur that the mother pulls from her breast. The babies grow so rapidly that they are covered with their own fur and able to leave the nest after about two weeks.
One of four rabbit species in Georgia, the Eastern cottontail occurs throughout the state, which makes it one of our most well-known and frequently observed mammals in both rural and urban areas. It takes its name from the bright spot under its short tail that, when raised, may be a distraction to potential predators.
It is a “crepuscular species,” meaning it is most active at dawn and dusk. I sometimes see one feeding on my lawn in Decatur, though I don’t see them as frequently as I did in the past, probably because of the influx of coyotes.
Georgia’s other rabbit species include the swamp rabbit, marsh rabbit and Appalachian rabbit.
IN THE SKY: The Lyrid meteor shower will be visible in the northeast sky from about 2 a.m. until dawn this weekend and through Wednesday, said David Dundee, Tellus Science Museum astronomer. It reaches a peak of about 15 meteors per hour Monday night.
The moon will be last quarter on Tuesday, rising just after midnight and setting around midday. Venus rises out of the east about 3 hours before dawn and will appear near the moon next Saturday morning. Mars rises out of the east just after dusk. Jupiter is high in the southwest at dusk and sets in the west before midnight. Saturn rises out of the east a few hours after sunset.
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