Palaeolagus

Palaeolagus (†Palaeolagus (Leidy, 1856))

 

Order: Lagomorpha

Family: Leporidae

Expansion: Oligocene period of  North and South America (33-23 million years ago )

Dimensions: 25 сm in length, 0,6 kg of weight

 

Palaeolagus is an extinct genus of lagomorph. Palaeolagus lived in the Oligocene period, but the earliest leporids  from the North America and Asia date to the upper Eocene some 40 million years ago.

The fossil remains of rabbits are scanty and those specimens that have been found are often too fragmentary to determine satisfactory the relationship with living forms. The bones of rabbits and hares are lightweight and fragile in structure, and so they are not easily preserved as fossils. Most of the species are inhabitants of uplands where conditions are not ideal for preservation. In a few deposits, rabbit remains seem numerous but many fossil species are known only from a few teeth and bones.

The 25 centimetres long creature closely resembled modern rabbits. They were common herbivorous inhabitants of the savanna, plains and woodlands of North America 30 million years ago.