01

The Quick Answer

However:

• Rabbits infected with Shope papillomavirus can grow hornlike tumors.
• Taxidermists make real jackalope mounts by attaching antlers to rabbits.
• Horned-rabbit specimens and images existed before the modern jackalope became famous.
• The jackalope is a genuine and enduring part of American folklore.

The fictional animal is not biologically real. The evidence surrounding it is.

02

Is a Jackalope a Real Animal Species?

No known species of rabbit, hare, or jackrabbit naturally grows antlers.

Antlers are structures produced by members of the deer family. Rabbits belong to an entirely different mammalian order and do not possess the anatomy needed to grow them.

A true antlered rabbit species would leave more than occasional stories and mounted heads. Researchers would expect to find:

• living populations
• skeletal remains
• consistent anatomical specimens
• genetic evidence
• documented breeding
• observations by wildlife biologists

None of that exists for the jackalope.

The mounted animal commonly displayed in bars, gift shops, museums, and roadside attractions is a constructed taxidermy piece. A rabbit or hare head is fitted with antlers, usually taken from a small deer.

That makes the traditional jackalope a manufactured creature—not an undiscovered species.

03

Do Rabbits With Horns Really Exist?

Rabbits do not grow true horns or antlers. But some rabbits develop growths that can look disturbingly similar.

The condition is caused by Shope papillomavirus, also known as cottontail rabbit papillomavirus. It can produce hard, keratinized tumors around a rabbit’s head, face, ears, or mouth.

In severe cases, the growths project outward like black horns.

They are not decorative or symmetrical. They may emerge at irregular angles, cluster around the nose, or spread across the face. A rabbit with an advanced infection can look far stranger than a traditional taxidermy jackalope.

One particularly dramatic specimen is preserved by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. The rabbit was collected near Lawrence, Kansas, in 1955 and developed extensive hornlike growths around its head.

The Denver Museum of Nature & Science preserves an even earlier specimen. That cottontail was collected in Logan County, Colorado, in 1919—fourteen years before Richard Shope published his research identifying the infectious condition.

These specimens show that genuinely horned-looking rabbits existed before scientists understood what caused their appearance.

They do not prove jackalopes exist as a species. They help explain why stories about horned rabbits were believable.

04

What Is the Closest Real Animal to a Jackalope?

The closest real-world equivalent is a rabbit infected with Shope papillomavirus.

Visually, however, the resemblance has limits.

A traditional jackalope has:

• two balanced, branching antlers
• a clean rabbit face
• an appearance resembling a stable hybrid species

A rabbit with papillomavirus usually has:

• irregular keratin growths
• tumors around the face, nose, or ears
• no predictable symmetry
• signs of disease rather than normal anatomy

The biological animal supplies the possibility of a horned-looking rabbit. Taxidermy transforms that disorder into the clean silhouette people recognize as a jackalope.

Disease produced the possibility. Taxidermy produced the creature people remembered.

05

Are the Famous Jackalope Pictures Real?

Some are photographs of real objects. That does not mean they show real animals.

A photograph of a mounted jackalope may accurately document a physical taxidermy specimen. The photograph itself can be genuine while the creature it depicts is constructed.

Other images show rabbits with papillomavirus. Those animals are real, but the growths are tumors—not antlers.

This creates several different categories of “real jackalope pictures”:

The important question is not simply whether the picture is authentic. It is what the picture actually authenticates.

06

Were Antlered Rabbits Reported Before the Jackalope?

Yes.

During our investigation of the jackalope’s history, we found references to “horned jack rabbits” in American newspapers decades before the Herrick family was said to have created the first Wyoming jackalope.

Reports included rabbits allegedly carrying:

• a single horn near the nose
• several irregular horns around the face
• pronged growths near the ears
• multiple projections across the head or body

Some descriptions sound compatible with papillomavirus. Others were clearly jokes, exaggerations, or speculative newspaper fillers.

More significant is a newspaper image that circulated in 1912 and 1913 showing a mounted rabbit with branching antlers.

A surviving reprint appeared in The Gordon Journal of Gordon, Nebraska, on February 28, 1913. The accompanying report claimed that the specimen had been shot near San Benito, Texas.

The image does not prove the animal was naturally antlered. It may depict a diseased specimen, a taxidermy construction, or a staged curiosity.

But it proves that the recognizable antlered-rabbit silhouette was circulating in American newspapers before the Herricks’ claimed invention.

07

Was the Jackalope a Hoax?

The taxidermy jackalope is a deliberate construction, but calling it merely a hoax misses part of the tradition.

A hoax ordinarily attempts to deceive people into accepting something false. Jackalope folklore often operates more like a shared game.

Tourists are told that jackalopes:

• run at extraordinary speeds
• imitate human voices
• sing with cowboys
• mate during thunderstorms
• can be attracted with whiskey
• may be hunted only during impossible seasons

The teller usually knows the story is absurd. The listener may know as well. The entertainment comes from sustaining the possibility.

That does not mean no one has ever been fooled. Taxidermy mounts, misleading captions, and staged “evidence” can create genuine confusion.

But the jackalope survived because exposure did not ruin it. Seeing where the antlers were attached did not end the tradition.

The construction became part of the joke.

08

Did the Herrick Brothers Invent the Jackalope?

Douglas and Ralph Herrick of Douglas, Wyoming, are traditionally credited with creating a jackalope mount during the 1930s.

Later accounts describe the supposed invention differently.

In a 1977 newspaper interview, Ralph Herrick said a rabbit had been left near a pair of antlers on the floor of the taxidermy shop. When the brothers returned, Doug allegedly said:

“Let’s mount it the way it is.”

By 1998, the story had changed. That version credited an unnamed friend with suggesting the combination during a rabbit hunt. An unidentified child supposedly provided the word “jackalope.”

Even the date and fate of the first mount vary between accounts.

No contemporaneous newspaper story, sales receipt, photograph, hotel record, or advertisement has surfaced documenting the supposed original mount at the time it was created.

And antlered-rabbit images and reports clearly existed earlier.

The evidence therefore supports a more careful conclusion:

Their most important contribution was helping turn the creature into a repeatable product and a recognizable symbol of Douglas, Wyoming.

09

Are Jackalopes Extinct?

No. The jackalope cannot be extinct because it has never been established as a biological species.

“Extinct” describes a real species whose final living member has died. There is no scientific record showing that a naturally antlered rabbit population ever existed.

Folklore sometimes invents explanations for the animal’s rarity. Jackalopes may be described as:

• extremely fast
• active only at night
• able to imitate human voices
• capable of hiding from hunters
• visible only during a limited season

These explanations belong to the legend. They protect the creature from being disproved by making it nearly impossible to observe.

Culturally, however, the jackalope is far from extinct. It remains visible in taxidermy, roadside attractions, artwork, merchandise, hunting-license jokes, and Wyoming identity.

10

Can Jackalopes Mimic Humans?

Not in reality.

The ability to imitate human voices is one of the jackalope’s best-known folkloric traits. Stories claim that jackalopes listen to cowboys singing around campfires and repeat their songs. Other versions describe them calling out to travelers or confusing hunters with humanlike speech.

There is no biological evidence supporting this ability.

The story does serve an important folkloric purpose. A creature that can repeat a person’s voice becomes difficult to locate and easy to misinterpret. A sound in the darkness might be another traveler—or a jackalope answering back.

11

Are Jackrabbits Real?

Yes. Jackrabbits are real animals, although the name is slightly misleading.

A jackrabbit is a hare rather than a true rabbit. Hares generally have longer legs and ears, are born with fur and open eyes, and are adapted for running in open landscapes.

The “jack” in jackrabbit came from “jackass rabbit,” a reference to its long, donkey-like ears.

The word jackalope combines “jackrabbit” and “antelope,” even though:

• jackrabbits are hares
• American “antelope” are usually pronghorns
• most jackalope mounts use deer antlers

The name works far better as folklore than zoology.

12

So, Do Jackalopes Exist?

Not as a naturally antlered species.

But several real things sit behind the legend:

The biological jackalope is fictional.

The horned-looking rabbits are real.

The taxidermy mounts are real.

The newspaper history is real.

And the folklore is real enough that people have been preserving, displaying, photographing, selling, and arguing about the creature for more than a century.

13

The Most Accurate Conclusion

So the best answer is not simply “no.”

Jackalopes are not real as a biological species. But nearly every ingredient that created the jackalope was real.