Bot Menagerie
The Jackalope
📍 The American West
a jackrabbit with antlers, and America's favorite tall tale.
The Jackalope is a mythical jackrabbit sporting the antlers of a deer or antelope, a beloved fixture of American West tall tales. Popularized by Wyoming taxidermists in the 1930s, it is celebrated with mock hunting licenses and roadside postcards. Real rabbits can develop horn-like growths from a virus, which likely gave the legend a kernel of truth.
said to mimic human voices around the campfire. cowboys swore by this.
A Wyoming taxidermy joke that stuck
The modern Jackalope was born in Douglas, Wyoming in the 1930s, when a pair of taxidermist brothers mounted a set of small antlers onto a jackrabbit and sold it as a novelty. The joke was a runaway hit. Douglas now bills itself as the home of the Jackalope, issues tongue-in-cheek hunting licenses valid only during a very narrow window, and keeps a giant statue of one downtown.
Older roots: the horned hare
The idea is older than Wyoming, though. European natural-history books for centuries depicted the "horned hare" as if it were a real animal, and folklore across cultures describes antlered or horned rabbits. The American cowboy version simply added tall-tale flourishes: that jackalopes can imitate human voices, that they only breed during lightning storms, and that a little whiskey will coax them to sing along.
The real biology behind it
There is a genuine phenomenon underneath the myth. A virus called Shope papillomavirus causes rabbits to grow keratin tumors, sometimes long, branching, and horn-like, from the head and face. A wild rabbit with these growths, glimpsed at dusk, looks uncannily like it is wearing antlers, and almost certainly helped the horned-rabbit idea persist for so long.
Is The Jackalope real?
Jackalopes are not a real species; the mounted ones are taxidermy jokes. But the legend is not pure invention: a real virus can give rabbits horn-like growths, so people genuinely have seen "horned" rabbits, just not antlered ones.
The short version: The Jackalope is folklore, a favorite of cryptozoology (the search for hidden or unproven animals), not a scientifically recognized species. The illustrations on this page are our own original art, not photographs. If you go looking, respect private property and wildlife, and let the legends stay legends.
The Jackalope: your questions
What is a Jackalope?
A Jackalope is a mythical creature from American folklore: a jackrabbit with the antlers of a deer or antelope. It is a classic tall tale of the American West.
Are Jackalopes real?
Jackalopes are not real animals, but the legend has a real basis: a virus called Shope papillomavirus can cause rabbits to grow horn-like keratin growths on the head.
Where did the Jackalope come from?
The modern Jackalope was popularized in Douglas, Wyoming in the 1930s by taxidermists who mounted antlers on jackrabbits. The broader "horned hare" idea appears in much older European folklore.
Can you get a Jackalope hunting license?
You can get a novelty one. Douglas, Wyoming issues tongue-in-cheek Jackalope hunting licenses as a local joke; they are souvenirs, not real permits.