Rabbits: The Animal Answer Guide

4 Rabbit Behavior

64 Are rabbits social? The only detailed, long-term studies of the social behavior of lagomorphs are those of a few pika species and the European rabbit. With the exception of the burrowing pika species, lagomorphs tend to be more asocial than not. Most typically, pikas, rabbits, and hares are solitary most of the time, coming together during the breeding season and sometimes forming aggregations at feeding sites. Even in European rabbits, which live in groups centered on interconnected underground burrows and tunnels called warrens, individuals often react to other members of their group with hostility or avoidance, or, at best, tolerance, provided nobody gets too close. And despite European rabbits’ reputation as highly social, their living together may be largely imposed by the limited availability of nest sites, rather than by some innate gregariousness. When nest sites are more evenly distributed, and at low densities, European rabbits may not form social groups at all. Also, there are some distinct disadvantages of group living, as discussed below. One way to determine how social a species is involves looking at how individuals use space with respect to one another. In lagomorphs, this varies considerably. The American pika, well studied by Andrew Smith and others, is fiercely territorial. Individuals defend their small homes from all others so that there is little overlap in the space they use except among paired males and females with adjacent territories. At the other extreme, in group-living plateau pikas, also well studied by Smith and his colleagues, and in European rabbits, many individuals occupy the same burrows or warrens. In between these extremes are most cottontails and hares, whose Chapter 4 Rabbit Behavior 65 Rabbit Behavior home ranges may overlap considerably (depending on density), but except for groups that form at preferred feeding sites, individuals do not simultaneously occupy the same areas within the overlapping home ranges. Hares and rabbits sometimes defend a personal space, which may vary from a less than a meter (39 inches) to several meters. At the very minimum, males and females must be social to mate, and lagomorphs exhibit a variety of mating systems from monogamy to polygyny (one male and many females) to promiscuity (random mating with no set partners). American pikas form monogamous pairs but the male and female mostly keep their distance except to mate. Male and female arctic hares pair up in the spring and stay together through the breeding season. White-sided jackrabbits also form pairs. In white-tailed, black-tailed, and Tehuantepec jackrabbits, a male’s home range overlaps that of several females , and the mating system is polygynous. Eastern cottontail and European hare males tend to form small groups during the breeding season and local males converge on available females in a promiscuous mating system. Within these groups, a dominance hierarchy forms among males, enforced by aggressive behavior. Dominant males mate with most of the females. The system is similar in swamp rabbits, although in this species males protect a territory around breeding females. Parent-offspring relationships are another aspect of social behavior. Lagomorphs have an absentee maternal care system, in which females visit their young to nurse only once a day and leave them alone the rest of the time (see “Do rabbits care for their young?” in chapter 6). Although mothers and their young in some species do show some affiliative behavior once their young leave the nest, and males often tolerate young—they may even intervene to prevent females from attacking young that may be theirs, as with European rabbits—these relationships end fairly quickly. Adult sometimes aggressively drive away their own and others’ youngsters as they approach sexual maturity, or young may basically drift away from their mothers after they are weaned. Plateau pikas are exceptional in this regard. Males provide significant parental care and in the sometimes polyandrous (one female and many males) mating system of this species, young survive better when they have more “fathers.” Dispersal, or permanently moving away from the natal area to live and reproduce elsewhere, is another aspect of social behavior. In many mammals , males disperse farther than females, seeking new home ranges or territories far from those of their mothers. This sex-biased dispersal is thought to minimize the risks of breeding between close relatives, to reduce competition among relatives for mates and resources, or both. Females may also benefit from staying in a familiar place to raise their young. A result of male-biased dispersal is that daughters and sisters often remain...