European Rabbit

The European rabbit is native to the Iberian Peninsula and southwestern France, strongly associated with Mediterranean shrubland where it lives in social groups of one to five males and one to eight females sharing burrow systems called warrens. It is the only rabbit species widely domesticated, first kept in ancient Rome from the first century BCE, and every breed of domestic rabbit descends from it. Introduced to at least 800 islands and every continent except Antarctica, it has often devastated local biodiversity where it lacks natural predators, most famously in Australia. Its own wild populations are now assessed as Near Threatened, driven down by overhunting, habitat loss and diseases including myxomatosis and rabbit haemorrhagic disease.