Giant Rabbits

I enjoyed this section from the (mostly lame) fantasy novel If I Pay Thee Not in Gold. A group of people are on a quest through unfamiliar territory, which at this point looks mostly like a "spinach-forest" consisting of giant, leafy plants:

She turned back to look at the growth. It really did look like some giant vegetable patch. What kind of menace could be lurking there? Giant rabbits?

For a moment that seemed hysterically funny, until she remembered that when things grew that large, even herbivores, they could be just as dangerous as any carnivore. And an animal that looked like a herbivore might not be one.

A rabbit the size of an elephant could easily bite the head off a man. And the fur, proportionally thick, could defend it against arrows and even spears to some extent. Suddenly the idea of giant rabbits was no longer funny.

The kind of "giant rabbits" that we see in our world these days are these 17 to 20 pound Flemish Giants. (I love the fact that Herman's favorite food is lettuce, which is famously low in calories; good thing he doesn't have Leo's obsession with calorie-dense carrot.)

But apparently, the earth did once bear a truly huge rabbit during the era of Big Animals:

The Minorcan Giant Lagomorph is an extinct rabbit that lived in the island of Minorca from the Messinian until around the middle of the Pliocene, when it became extinct. During that time, both Majorca and Minorca were united in one large landform, allowing the Myotragus balearicus to colonize the Minorcan Giant Lagomorph's habitat.

Fossils have been found of individuals which could have weighed up to 23 kg [51 pounds]. They had short legs and a short, straight and rigid vertical column, very different from its living relatives.

Robert and I can barely keep the under-5-pound (mini Rex) Leo under control. He kicks hard and likes to pick things up with his teeth and toss them. He'd be a real monster at 20 - 50 pounds. Only we've noticed that the bigger bunnies seem to be much more docile and easy-going. Maybe the primary risk would consist of being sat upon.