Domestic rabbit

The domestic rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus domesticus) is the domesticated form of the European rabbit. There are hundreds of rabbit breeds originating from all over the world. Rabbits were first domesticated and used for food and fur by the Romans. Rabbits may be housed inside, but the idea of the domestic rabbit as a house companion, a so-called house rabbit (similar to a house cat), was only strongly promoted starting with publications in the 1980s. Rabbits can be trained to use a litter box and taught to come when called, but require exercise and can damage a house or injure themselves if it has not been suitably prepared, based on their innate need to chew. Accidental interactions between pet rabbits and wild rabbits, while seemingly harmless, are strongly discouraged due to the species' different temperaments as well as wild rabbits potentially carrying diseases.

Unwanted pet rabbits sometimes end up in animal shelters, especially after the Easter season. In 2017, they were the United States' third most abandoned pet. Some of them go on to be adopted and become family pets in various forms. Because their wild counterparts have become invasive in Australia, pet rabbits are banned in the state of Queensland. Domestic rabbits — bred for generations under human supervision to be docile — lack survival instincts, and perish in the wild if they are abandoned or escape from captivity.

Domestic rabbits are raised as livestock for their meat, wool (in the case of the Angora breeds) and/or fur. They are also kept as pets and used as laboratory animals. Specific breeds are used in different industries; Rex rabbits, for example, are commonly raised for their fur, Californians are commonly raised for meat and New Zealands are commonly used in animal testing for their nearly identical appearance. Aside from the commercial or pet application, rabbits are commonly raised for exhibition at shows.

Male rabbits are called bucks; females are called does. An older term for an adult rabbit is coney, while rabbit once referred only to the young animals. Another term for a young rabbit is bunny, though this term is often applied informally (especially by children and rabbit enthusiasts) to rabbits generally, especially domestic ones. More recently, the term kit or kitten has been used to refer to a young rabbit. A young hare is called a leveret; this term is sometimes informally applied to a young rabbit as well. A group of rabbits is known as a "colony" or a "nest".

The word rabbit itself derives from the Middle English rabet, a borrowing from the Walloon robète, which was a diminutive of the French or Middle Dutch robbe.

Phoenician sailors visiting the coast of Spain c. 12th century BC, mistaking the rabbit for a species from their homeland (the rock hyrax Procavia capensis), gave the region the name i-shepan-ham (land or island of hyraxes). The spread of the European rabbit from its native range of the Iberian Peninsula is linked to the possible deliberate introduction of the species to Africa by the Phoenicians around this time period, followed by later introductions to the regions of Italy, England, and Ireland by various seafaring groups.

The captivity of rabbits as a food source is recorded as early as the 1st century BC, when the Roman writer Pliny the Elder described the use of rabbit hutches, along with enclosures called leporaria. In Rome, rabbits were raised in large walled colonies with walls extended underground. According to Pliny, the consumption of unborn and newborn rabbits, called laurices, was considered a delicacy.

In the Middle Ages, wild rabbits were often kept for the hunt. Monks in southern France were crossbreeding rabbits at least by the 12th century AD. This was thought to have occurred as early as 600 AD in order to provide a 'meat substitute' for the monks during lent, which is a Christian observance in which one must refrain from eating meat. Domestication was probably a slow process that took place from the Roman period (or earlier) until the 1500s, around which point rabbit was a meat served as a luxury.