At Hobby Farm Heaven, we are fascinated by the animal adaptations we find in nature and evolutionary biology is one of our favorite topics. Realizing that rabbits are a natural prey animal helps us realize that they evolved with the necessity to be able to detect danger, run fast, and hide well in order to survive.
Learning is a lifelong journey and we have intentionally observed and learned about our animals and pets because we are genuinely curious about them. We believe that when we have a better understanding of how our hobby farm animals interact with the world, we are more able to help them live happy and healthy lives. Understanding the rabbit’s natural abilities, in particular the strengths and weaknesses of its senses, is key to being able to care for your rabbit!
So this is our Rabbit Senses Round-Up Article where we discuss each of the rabbit’s five senses (Hearing, Smelling, Feeling, Seeing, and Tasting), covering strengths and weaknesses and answer your questions.
We also provide links to our respective articles if you’d like to know more about a respective rabbit sense and we’ve embedded some very informative videos in our articles. So read on and learn all you need about the senses rabbits use!
We argue that for survival, hearing is the rabbit’s strongest and most critical of the five senses. What is your opinion?
Rabbit Sense of Hearing
In our Rabbit Hearing – How Do Rabbits Hear article we compare rabbits hearing sensativity to humans and other animals, while noting that the rabbit possesses a very special “system of systems”. The rabbit’s ears consist of the following systems:
- Sound Capture System – the large ears efficiently funnel sound to the middle ear
- Early Warning System – the acute hearing provides for early detection and warning of approaching predators
- Temperature Control System – like the elephant, a rabbit’s ears radiate heat to cool the rabbit
- Body Balance System – the large ears can move to help maintain balance, especially when moving at high speed
- Communication System – the position of the ears communicates the rabbits mood and emotions
Overall, the anatomy of the rabbit middle and inner ear is similar to the human middle and inner ear!
Special Facts For Rabbit Sense of Hearing
- Rabbits can move their ears independently. For instance, a rabbit can turn one ear toward a noise on its right an behind it, and then turn the other ear toward a noise on its left and forward of it.
- Newborn rabbits, or kits, are deaf.
- Rabbits can hear in ultrasonic frequency range, which means they hear bats, moths, and other insects that humans cannot hear.
- Rabbits can tell where sound is coming from within about 28 degrees of accuracy.
- Rabbits hear, especially higher pitch sounds, much better than humans.
- Rabbits and elephants both cool their bodies as blood flows through their large ears and radiates heat.
- Sometimes so much blood is flowing through a rabbit’s ears, to cool the rabbit’s temperature, that the ears flop over.
- When a rabbit is zigzagging away from danger at high speed, it can move its large ears to help maintain balance.
- Rabbits often communicate their mood and emotions with their ears.
- Lop eared rabbits are often hearing challenged because their floppy ears block sound.
And here is a great video about rabbit “head tilt”, an affliction that most often is the result of an inner ear infection.
This video about rabbit ear mites is also very well done.
Rabbit Sense of Smell
In our Rabbit Sense of Smell article, we answer the questions, “How good is a rabbit’s sense of smell?” and, “How do rabbits smell their world?”
Rabbits have an exceptional sense of smell and are constantly sampling the air to help them:
- Find food
- Attract mates
- Identify territories
- Detect predators and survive
Like their ears and excellent hearing, the rabbit’s keen sense of smell helps him detect predators from far away.
Special Facts for Rabbit Sense of Smell
- Based on the number of olfactory receptors or smell receptor cells, a rabbit’s sense of smell is 15 to 20 times better than your or my sense of smell.
- Rabbits can smell only about half as well as most dogs.
- General separation of inbound and outbound air helps the rabbit sample odors and smells.
- A rabbit’s nasal structure is more complex than a human’s nasal structure. In general, the more complex the nasal structure, the better the sense of smell.
- Newborn rabbits, or kits, have an outstanding sense of smell that picks up on the “mammary pheromone” in their mother’s milk.
- Normal respiration rate for a rabbit is 30 to 60 breathes per minute and when sniffing, the rabbit can sample the air up to 8 times per second.
- Rabbits can often smell food that is underground.
- Rabbits quickly distinguish and associate specific smells. Rabbits can smell their owners and may smell you before they see you!
- The most frequent rabbit upper respiratory infection is commonly known as snuffles.
Here is an enlightening video about scabs on your rabbit’s nose and how best to treat them.
Rabbit Sense of Touch or Feeling
Our Rabbit Sense of Touch article is full of additional information and details on how rabbits feel. Without surprise, rabbits has evolved to feel touch in a unique manner. Yes, a rabbit’s sense of touch is sensitive, more so than a human. It helps the rabbit be more aware of its environment and navigate its surroundings.
The basket nerve branches surrounding the rabbit’s hair follicles are very sensitive and the rabbit’s skin is very thin. In addition, rabbits have whiskers around their mouth and nose and above their eyes (like eyebrows). Whiskers help the rabbit determine spatial relationships near its body, like the size of the entrance to a hole or hiding place.
Rabbits also sense temperature and pressure!
Special Facts for Rabbit Sense of Touch
- The rabbit’s largest organ for interacting with and sensing its environment is the skin.
- Nerves surrounding the rabbit’s hair follicles are super sensitive. It is said that the rabbit can “feel” using its hair or fur.
- A rabbit’s whiskers are generally as wide as the rabbit and are super sensitive to touch, wind, and pressure.
- Rabbit whiskers that are broken to pulled out (due to fighting, etc.) will grow back unless they are repeatedly plucked
- Rabbits generally love to be gently touched, stroked and groomed.
Here is a related and helpful video about how to properly handle your rabbit.
Rabbit Vision – How Do Rabbits See?
Our rabbit vision article is intriguing and full of facts. For example, rabbits do not have strong vision in bright daylight or darkness! Rather, rabbits are crepuscular, meaning they are most active during morning and evening twilight. These times of the day/night are when they have the keenest vision and, subsequently, is when their primary predators have weak vision!
In addition, rabbits do not see as well as humans. However, the rabbit’s retina has a higher ratio of cones to rods than the human eye. Because of this, rabbits see better than humans do in low light. However, they have photoreceptors for blue and green light but not for red light. This means bunnies do not see red the same way as we do! Finally, rabbits use of parallax behavior is a neat adaption to their mostly monocular vision; it helps them judge distance and speed.
Overall, the anatomy of the rabbit eye is very similar to the human eye.
Special Facts for Rabbit Sense of Sight
- Rabbits are far-sighted and they have a field of vision that is nearly 360 degrees.
- Their eyes are positioned in their heads to help them detect predators from any angle and from above.
- Rabbits have a blind spot direction in front of their nose and under their chin.
- Lop eared rabbits are vision challenged because their ears block much of their field of vision.
- Rabbits are partially color-blind, red light wavelengths appear greyish to them.
- Rabbits often sleep with their eyes open, which likely helps them react to predators faster.
- Rabbits have a third, transparent eyelid called a nictating membrane.
- Rabbits blink once every 5 or 6 minutes (humans blink about 12 times per minute)
- A night lite that is on all the time will bother your rabbit.
- Rabbits do not have good night vision ability.
Here is a great video about Nest Box Eye which afflicts baby bunnies, and how to treat it. (Ha Ha, did he say rabbitologist?)
Rabbit Sense of Taste – How Good Is A Rabbit’s Sense of Taste
Our Rabbit Sense of Taste article provides some interesting information about taste buds and the overall consensus is that rabbits have a strong sense of taste. In fact, they have about twice as many taste buds as humans, and their sense of smell is much better than humans!
Further, research shows that rabbit can distinguish the primary tastes of sweet, salty, bitter, and sour have about 17,000 taste buds. Distinguishing sour and bitter tastes is important for rabbits as many sour tasting items are spoiled and bitter plants can be poisonous. Being able to distinguish these tastes is part of the rabbit’s evolutionary biology.
Check this out: our article speaks to the scientific idea that animals, including rabbits, can develop a “Nutritional Wisdom” about their food. We thought it fascinating that food’s physical characteristics like softness, liquidity, temperature, and texture help rabbits figure out if it is desirable. Beware that rat poison sometimes fools rabbits and they have been found to ingest it with deadly consequences.
Special Facts for Rabbit Sense of Taste
- Gustation is the act of tasting.
- Yes, rabbits have a tongue!
- A rabbit has saliva that helps them taste what is in their mouth and begins the digestion process.
- Rabbits taste using their taste buds. A taste bud is a cluster of receptors located on bumps called papillae on the surface of the tongue.
- Taste cells are replaced every 2 weeks.
- Mechanosensitive cells detect and then send signals to the rabbit’s brain that determine the texture of the food.
- Smell contributes to taste – no doubt about it.
- Anosmia is the loss of one’s sense of smell.
Our article includes a link to a great view inside a rabbit’s mouth and here is a related video about checking your rabbit’s teeth.
To wrap it up, here is a scientific article about rabbit sense organs that does a nice job of explaining the rabbit’s senses of vision, hearing, smell, taste and touch in more depth. It provides great figures and schematics to learn from!
Final Thoughts
As we’ve discussed, rabbits are natural prey animal for a bunch of predators such as the fox, owl, coyote, eagle, bobcat, and hawks. As such, not only do they posses the five common senses, but they have evolved hightened sensitivities to be able to detect nearby predators and then evade or hide from them.
And the consensus holds is that rabbits have a better sense of hearing, smelling, feeling, and tasting than humans. However, rabbits do not see as well as humans, except for in low light situations during morning and evening twilight.
Consequently, the crepuscular rabbit is most active and has their best vision during morning and evening twilight, when its prime predators are their least active and have their worst vision. This is evolution at its finest.
Truly, we were surprised that the rabbit does not have better vision! We anticipated vision to be one of the rabbits stronger, if not the strongest, sense.
Well, that is why we learn about our animals; it helps us keep them healthy, happy and unstressed. Let us know which rabbit sense you were most suprised to learn about in the comments section below, we would love to hear your feedback!