JACKALOPE: A mythical horned rabbit.

That’s the problem with putting the definition first—it takes all the mystery out of an anecdote. The jackalope is indeed a mythical beast, one that belongs with the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot as a greater contributor to the local tourist trade than to biological science. The citizens of some western states of the USA have long had fun convincing credulous visitors that the animal is real.

Where it comes from is open to doubt, and even controversy, but in a report last month of the death of Douglas Herrick it was stated as fact that he was its true inventor. The story goes that he and his brothers, who ran a taxidermy shop in Douglas, Wyoming, mounted the horns of a pronghorn antelope on to the body of a jackrabbit sometime in the 1930s and exhibited it straight-faced, naming it by an equally ingenious conflation of the constituent animals’ names. In the decades since, the firm has made several thousands of them, so much so that Douglas has become the jackalope capital of the USA. In 1965, the state of Wyoming trademarked the name and you can even buy hunting licenses, good between midnight and 2am on 31 June any year.

Michael Quinion. World Wide Words.
http://www.quinion.com/words/weirdwords/ww-jac2.htm
[Accessed May 21st, 2003.]

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Seemingly innocuous creatures, hares and rabbits have at various times been regarded as bad luck, particularly if encountered on a journey, or on a ship or boat (See A Dictionary of Superstitions, ed. Iona Opie and Moira Tatem, Oxford: Oxford UP, 1989). Despite the claims of Douglas Herrick (see above), images of horned rabbits can be found from the Renaissance onwards. For some historical images, check out the sites of the Jackalope Appreciation Circle Web Ring (home: http://www.sudftw.com/jackcon.htm ).

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