For Bunday today, we’re focusing on the rarest rabbit in the world; one that is rarely seen or heard of…. have you ever heard of the Sumatran Striped Rabbit?  I hadn’t, until I saw this new research using camera traps to study this elusive and endangered rabbit.

This rare rabbit, Nesolagus netscheri, was first photographed in Kerinci Seblat National Park in 1998 and has rarely been seen since.  The new pictures and other observations of the rabbit are reported in the current issue of the journal Oryx.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Sumatran striped rabbit has been known to science since 1880, and biologists have taken new interest in it recently.  According to doctoral candidate Jennifer McCarthy with the University of Massachusetts-Amherst,

 

“We don’t know anything about the ecology, habitat preference, population status of the species, or threats that the species faces,” she says. “Our present study tried to gather all available occurrence data on the [Sumatran striped rabbit] in Sumatra, and we believe we were fairly successful, but even so we are only able to really identify two areas (Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park and Kerinci Seblat National Park) that we are positive still harbor the species.”