Jackelope: Case Solved? – The Weird Side of the Internet

Jackelope: Case Solved? – The Weird Side of the Internet – by Liam Sweeny.

The Jackalope. The jackelope is the Great American cryptid. No, it’s not as regal as bigfoot, or mystical as the Jersey Devil. It’s the cryptid of every farmer, whose faces, or skulls, rather, find themselves on plaques in living rooms from across miles of amber waves pushing through purple majesty. And I always thought it was a joke, and for the most part it was, but a Jackalope has quite possibly broken the mystery bond of strange creature to reveal a normal creature with unfortunate, yet common, condition.

You may actually see a wild Jackelope in the Fort Collins, Colorado areas. There they’ve found rabbits with infections of Shope papillomavirus, a common virus that causes warts that, if left to grow, causes the appearance of horns.

So a jackrabbit with a head full of horns could very easily explain Jackelope. Maybe not the artistic frauds on the wall next to the singing trout, but the general idea of a deer-rabbit hybrid could be explained.

I’m gonna put a pic up, but damned if this isn’t crazy looking. Some of them, if you add a little gothic cinematography, could be in an indie film at Cannes that no one gets except that they just can’t stop looking at the Rabbit Lord.

So as far as the illness, the rabbits’ immune systems can handle it, so it’s just a sucky week for them or whatever.

It opens up a bigger issue. What if half of the “cryptids” – the bigfoots, chupacabras, mothmen, Jersey devils, etc. what if they’re just basic animals with a rash? For all we know, bigfoots are just people that are genetically tall and extremely hairy and they just want to be left alone to chill and watch Netflix away from society and electric shavers.

All in all, the jackelope has been put to rest. Next up, the platypus.

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