Here’s a cute video about the pika, the other member of the order Lagomorpha besides the rabbit and the hare. The video, which features David Attenborough, depicts a pika collecting poisonous plants for winter. The poison acts as a preservative, so later in the winter months, the poison will wear off and the plant will be fresh and edible.

In Gujaret, central India, fossil hunters have unearthed small ankle bones from a 53 million-year-old lagomorph. Lagomorpha is an order comprising of rabbits, hares and pikas.

This study is significant because it shows that lagomorphs had already begun to diversify during the Eocene Epoch. This diversity in mammals has been attributed by scientists to the global warming that had occurred 2 million years earlier.

For more info: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7253518.stm