All about the rabbit size

Our local pet shop had two little rabbits for sale. The title said "pygmy rabbits". They were the same size as kittens. Those were the cutest rabbits I ever saw. As a newbie at rabbits, I wondered if the name "pygmy" implied that they would remain tiny forever.

I asked the shopkeeper how old the rabbits were and how big they would grow. It turned out the rabbits were very young and — to show how big they would grow — the shopkeeper spread her arms about 50 cm wide. "And you call THAT pygmy!", I thought.

A bit of googling showed bunnies can be hilariously huge. According to Guinness World Records, the largest rabbit was observed in Spain in 1980, with a weight of 26.4 lbs or 12 kg.


Other huge rabbits were a bit smaller, but not by much. In the picture to the left, you can see a French lop-eared rabbit Humphrey, 25 lbs, 42 inch long. The owner looks quite happy to me. Read more about this bunny here.

And two other famous giant bunnies: a 18 lbs rabbit from Scotland named Bodmin and a 22 lbs rabbit called a German Giant. More pictures and information on these mega rabbits here.

What about tiny bunnies? Guiness World Records shows that Dutch and Polish varieties of pygmy rabbits weigh only about 1 kg. Which means they're about ten times as small as the huge rabbits in the pictures above. I guess I'd buy one of these cuties if they were sold in our local pet shop. :)