the easter bunny down under

Australia! Where Christmas is during the summer, and the water going down the sink might swirl the opposite way from up here in the US, but maybe not too. And where the rabbit is not a native species, and some would like to replace the Easter Bunny with the similarly-eared but endangered Easter Bilby.

The bilby (Macrotis lagotis) is rabbit sized, rabbit eared, has a long pointy nose and a long tail, and light gray fur with tan patches like a pale tortoiseshell cat. They don't drink much water, getting most of their moisture needs from their food: larva, tiny animals, fruit, bugs. They live in western Queensland. Efforts to breed them in captivity and reintroduce them to their native areas are going successfully. Want to see one and learn more? Look on this page.

"But how much fun is Easter without a chocolate bunny?" you ask. Oh, I bet it would be loads of fun with a chocolate bilby! (When I lived there as a little girl they had chocolate frogs called "Freddies." I loved them - especially in the dessert called "Freddy in a Pond," which was a frog at the bottom of a bowl of lime Jello.) And then you should visit easterbilby.com.

Happy Easter to you all, Museum friends!