I don’t know about you, but I think rabbits are about the cutest things in the world.

They’re so skittish that you hardly get a chance to enjoy their big cute ears and twitchy noses – which is why I’m sure I’m not the only one totally jealous of these hikers who got a close-up encounter.

And not with just any rabbit, either.

Rainforests are some of the most biodiverse habitats in the world, and home to the rarest rabbit out there, the Sumatran striped rabbit.

In June of 2022, a lucky group of hikers were greeted by one of these rabbits (Nesolagus netscheri), when only a few sightings have been reported in the past 50 years.

The rabbits have rust-colored fur with darker stripes in a watermelon-type pattern. They’re nocturnal and live in the remotest spots in the forest.

The first images of the striped rabbit were captured in 1998, another encounter was recorded in 2000, and then a third in 2007.

Then nothing until this one in 2022.

 

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Deborah Martyr, an advisor at the Tiger Protection & Conservation Units at Kerinci Seblat National Park, issued a statement about the find.

“Very little is known about this animal, other than that it shows a marked preference for mossy hill and submontane forest. The only specimens from Sumatra date back to the Dutch colonial period – and are in the Netherlands, not Indonesia.”

Personally, I would like to see one for myself.

Time to take a trip I guess!

If you thought that was interesting, you might like to read about a quantum computer simulation that has “reversed time” and physics may never be the same.