Jackalope

Jackalopes are imaginary creatures with the body and head of a jackrabbit, topped incongruously with either the spiky antlers of a deer or the pronged horns of an antelope. Their alleged existence—especially in the states of the Rocky Mountain West, Great Plains, and northern midwest—is often the source of good-natured lying, in the tradition of fooling tourists and other persons seemingly susceptible to tall tales and exaggeration. Examples of other such creatures include the fur-bearing trout, hoop snake, and wild haggis, as well as the practical joke to hunt elusive snipe on moonless nights in the woods. These types of purely imaginary creatures are thus distinguished from the Loch Ness Monster, Abominable Snowman (or Yeti), and Bigfoot—all of which have both loyal believers and doubtful skeptics on the question of actual physical existence.

The origins of the jackalope are difficult to determine. According to an obituary in the New York Times (2003), the jackalope was created in the 1930s by two brothers who owned a taxidermy shop in Douglas, Wyoming. One day after returning from a hunting trip, Douglas Herrick and Ralph Herrick casually tossed the body of a jackrabbit onto their shop floor. When the rabbit's head serendipitously came to rest against a set of deer antlers, the brothers were inspired to combine the two unrelated parts into a new hybrid creation. However, other sources maintain that the first jackalope was observed by either John Colter on the Lewis and Clark Expedition in 1807 or 1808 or by Wyoming trapper Roy Ball in 1829 (or in 1862, according to still other sources). Doubters of the Herricks' account also maintain that another store in Buffalo, Wyoming, featured a stuffed jackalope as early as the 1920s.

Other theories suggest that the American jackalope may derive in part from real European rabbits bearing horn-like appendages as early as the 16th century. One such rabbit, identified in German as die gehörnten Hase (the horned hare) and in Latin as Lepus cornutus, was illustrated in Konrad Gesner's Thierbuch (or Animal Book, 1563). Subsequent illustrations of rabbits with small horns growing out of their foreheads appeared in other printed volumes throughout the 17th and 18th centuries in Europe. Wildlife biologists and naturalists have speculated that these rabbits were infected with the shope papilloma virus, which causes large warts resembling horns to grow on the heads of rabbits. This same virus has also infected cottontail rabbits in the United States, particularly in the Midwest and Great Plains. Still another hypothesis tracing jackalopes to Europe is that immigrants to the United States may have brought with them knowledge of imaginary animals with antlers, wings, fangs, and a tail—all attached to [Page 556]the body of a small mammal that resembles a rabbit or squirrel. In Bavaria, this composite creature is known as the Wolpertinger. In neighboring Austria, it is called the Raurackl.

Whatever its origins, the jackalope is now associated with a wide variety of exaggerated attributes. According to this lore, jackalopes are fierce and elusive creatures, capable of hopping at speeds greater than 65 miles per hour (which would place them second only to the cheetah among the world's fastest animals on land). Reputed to be highly intelligent and cunningly deceitful, jackalopes are supposedly able to mimic any sounds, including those of coyotes, crows, and humans, and even know how to project their voices like ventriloquists in order to fool hunters on their trail. There are also reports of jackalopes being able to imitate the sounds of crying babies, the accents of French speakers, and the lyrical ballads of cowboys and lumberjacks—albeit only on dark nights before an advancing thunderstorm. Additional lore maintains that the elaborate mating ritual of jackalopes occurs only amid flashes of lightning (according to one source), or during the fall migration, after the young have been kicked out of the nest and left to fend for themselves (according to another source).

...