WHAT'S UP DOC?

My day had started but my brain had not.  Given those conditions, it wasn’t a surprise that I jumped and squeaked a little as the beast darted into the path of my headlights.  It was “4:30 a.m. ish” and I was traveling down a gravel road in the grasslands of Oklahoma.  The beast was fast!  It skittered left, then right in a frantic effort to get out of my way.  Then it just ran down the road in front of me.  That was the most annoying of choices.  After what felt like an eternity, it jumped into the roadside grass, turned to face the road, and huddled down.  When my truck arrived at its huddle location the beast decided to repeat the process. By “round-two” my brain had kicked in and I could identify the beast as a very large rabbit.  Turns out I had been following a black-tailed jackrabbit!  The black-tailed jackrabbit has long ears with black tips.  There is a black stripe that runs down its back and the tail is black with a white underside.  It flashes the white underside of the tail to alert other rabbits and confuse predators.  I’m not sure how that works.  Is the predator stupefied, wondering if it is about to eat a white-tailed rabbit instead?  Does the predator stop its pursuit to confirm proper identification in a field guide before resuming its efforts to catch and consume said prey?  If it did, the predator would find that the scientific name of the rabbit is Lepus californicus (Does anyone else think “lepus” is a great name for a rabbit?!?  It sounds like Wile E. Coyote named it!).  The name jackrabbit came from settlers who, noticing the big ears, referred to it as the “jackass rabbit”.  This is a reference to the jackass produced when a female horse and a male donkey (a.k.a “jack”) are mated.  It is not a reference to the tv show “Jackass”, although at 4:30 a.m. ish I may have referred to the rabbit as something like that.  By the way, the black-tailed jackrabbit isn’t a rabbit.  It is considered a “hare” because the young (called “leverets”) are born fully furred with their eyes open and rabbits are born naked with eyes closed.  Regardless of the name, you can find this beast in scrub lands, prairies, and farmlands within the southwestern part of the U.S. and into Washington, Idaho, Nebraska, and Colorado.  Apparently, these beasts get around (wink wink).  They have up to four litters each year with three to four leverets in each litter.  The young are born in a fur-lined depression that the mother digs in the soil (no tunnels with TV!).  That fur is pulled from her abdomen (OUCH!). The leverets only nurse for three-four days and are on their own in less than a month.  These baby numbers add up quickly and the black-tailed jackrabbit population size can skyrocket.  This probably works out for their predators (foxes, bobcats, coyotes, and weasels), but isn’t so great for agriculture.  Fifteen of these hares can eat as much plant matter as one large grazing cow.  That can put a dent in things – maybe even a fur lined dent/depression.