Brachylagus idahoensis

The Pygmy Rabbit is the world's smallest living species of rabbit. They are the only rabbit species alive native to North America that makes its own burrows. These live in the Great Basin area of the United States, being restricted to Utah, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming, and California.https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Great_Basin&oldid=1146937118https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pygmy_rabbit&oldid=1142194745 There is an extinct subspecies that is being revived through careful genetic crossbreeding. This type of crossbreeding should eventually result in a modern version of the subspecies where the genetic distinctions of the other subspecies are absent in the final results. This would be the Columbian Basin Pygmy Rabbit. My current source does not list a subspecies name, nor the names of other subspecies. These were previously the world's smallest species & subspecies of rabbit, and technically the hybrids might still be. As their name suggests, they were restricted to the Washington State's Columbian Basin previously. Some rabbits have been reintroduced there. Though the subspecies does not exist in its pure form it is listed as Endangered by the U.S and is at risk due to environmental damage to its shrub-steppe home and disease.https://fws.gov/species/pygmy-rabbit-brachylagus-idahoensis
The species was first described by Merriam in 1891, but it was considered to belong to Lepus. In 1900 Miller proposed the subgenus of Brachylagus and 4 years later Lyon brought it to genus status. Some people have since tried to place it in Sylvilagus,https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/32426/pg32426-images.html#Family_Leporidae but since morphological and genetic analysis continues to validate its differentiation from them, it is considered to belong in its own genus. Fossils of it have been found in Nevada in the Irvingtonian era, and its ancestor or relative was found in Colorado. It most likely evolved from them in the Irvingtonian era or just before, in the Miocene era.https://www.jstor.org/stable/41713099 It may seem strange to some readers, but evolution can occur within the time frame of thousands of years, which they both had in an area that spanned about 2 million years.
== References ==
Category:Pygmy Rabbits
Category:Brachylagus