Rabbit (Books)

Rabbits are a small mammal mentioned in the How to Train Your Dragon Book series.

Description
Rabbits (Family Leporidae) are an herbivorous mammals that have both domestic and wild species. There is at least one species naturally occurring somewhere on every continent other than Antarctica and Australia. Rabbits have very large muscular hindlimbs to propel themselves forward rapidly to avoid predators. They also have very long and large ear pinna relative to their heads, presumably to amply the sound of potential threats.

Due to the high volume of fibrous plant material which makes up almost exclusively their diet, rabbits essentially need to process their food twice. The rabbit eats plants, digests it then excretes it into dark soft pellets to eat and digest again. This increases the amount of energy and nutrients the rabbit can derive. These pellets of partially digested material is separate from fecal pellets.

Function
In the Book series, rabbits are used for a negative comparison to other creatures, typically dragons, and specifically Toothless.

In reality, rabbits are raised and hunted primarily as a food source. They may also be raise and hunted for fur as well. Rabbits as pets have become increasingly popular in modern times.

How to Train Your Dragon
Rabbits and also bunnies - juvenile rabbits - are mentioned when describing Toothless' very small and weak physical frame.

"What is it Hiccup? A brown bunny rabbit with wings? A flower fairy? A fluffy flying frog?"

- Snotlout

"That's not a dragon ... that's an ickle newborn bunny wabbit with a pathetic poo problem."

- Fireworm, spoken in Dragonese