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The jackalope is a mythical animal of North American folklore (a so-called fearsome critter) described as a jackrabbit with antelope horns. The word "jackalope" is a portmanteau of "jackrabbit" and "antelope", although the jackrabbit is not a rabbit, and the American antelope is not an antelope. Also, many jackalope taxidermy mounts, including the original, are actually made with deer antlers. In the 1930s, Douglas Herrick and his brother, hunters with taxidermy skills, popularized the American jackalope by grafting deer antlers onto a jackrabbit carcass and selling the combination to a local hotel in Douglas, Wyoming. Thereafter, they made and sold many similar jackalopes to a retail outlet in South Dakota, and another taxidermist continues to manufacture the horned rabbits in the 21st century. Stuffed and mounted, jackalopes are found in many bars and other places in the United States; stores catering to tourists sell jackalope postcards and other paraphernalia, and commercial entities in America and elsewhere have used the word "jackalope" or a jackalope logo as part of their marketing strategies. The jackalope has appeared in published stories, poems, television shows, video games, and a low-budget mockumentary film. The Wyoming Legislature has considered bills to make the jackalope the state's official mythological creature. The underlying legend of the jackalope, upon which the Wyoming taxidermists were building, may be related to similar stories in other cultures and other historical times. Researchers suggest that at least some of the tales of horned hares were inspired by sightings of rabbits infected with the ''Shope papilloma virus''. It causes horn- and antler-like tumors to grow in various places on a rabbit's head and body. Folklorists see the jackalope as one of a group of fabled creatures common to American culture since Colonial days. These appear in tall tales about hodags, giant turtles, Bigfoot, and many other mysterious beasts and in novels like ''Moby Dick''. The tales lend themselves to comic hoaxing by entrepreneurs who seek attention for their products, their persons, or their towns. ==Name== ''Jackalope'' is a portmanteau word that combines two words, ''jackrabbit'' and ''antelope''. Jackrabbits are actually hares rather than rabbits though both are mammals in the order ''Lagomorpha''. Wyoming is home to three species of hares, all in the genus ''Lepus''. These are the black-tailed jackrabbit, the white-tailed jackrabbit, and the snowshoe hare. The antelope is actually a pronghorn (''Antilocapra americana'') rather than an antelope, although one of its colloquial names in North America is "antelope". Some of the largest herds of wild pronghorns, which are found only in western North America, are in Wyoming. The adults grow to about tall, weigh up to , and can run at sustained speeds approaching . 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「jackalope」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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