By closely examining the mitochondrial DNA – which comes to the offspring from mother – it was also revealed that a large number of Australian rabbits had descended from five females introduced from Europe. It was also found there was a lot of similarity between the Australian rabbits and the one from southwest England – from where Austin’s family had picked up these mammals to be sent to him. It came to the fore that a large number of the Australian rabbits on the mainland were similar genetically and their ancestry was a mix of wild and domestic. Scientists to confirm the origin of these animals conducted a genomic analysis of 187 European rabbits that had been ensnared from 1865 to 2018 in Tasmania, Australia, Great Britain, New Zealand and France. Fencing in Australia to keep rabbits away Six years after receiving his gift, in 1865, Austin shared with the local newspapers that had killed 20,000 of these creatures on his property. The rabbit population increased across the land at more than 60 miles per year and in 50 years they covered the continent. Yet Austin’s case was the turning point since it was after this, they virtually swamped the region. Following this in the next 70 years, these creatures had been introduced in the region 90 times. These mammals had reached Australian shores with the first British colonisers who had arrived in 1788. What is noteworthy is that this was not the first time that rabbits were stepping on this continent. Jiggins is an evolutionary geneticist at England’s University of Cambridge. Talking about that episode, Francis Jiggins, one of the authors of the study, told Nature News: “That single event triggered this enormous catastrophe, ecologically and economically, in Australia.” It all started in 1859 when on Christmas, a wealthy English settler in Australia, Thomas Austin, received 24 wild and domestic rabbits from his brother in England. The scientific research which has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, gives credence to an earlier theory suggested by historians that the rabbit menace of Australia emanated from one estate. Interestingly, the analysis of the genes of these rabbits has revealed that their strong number of 200 million can trace their ancestry to probably just a single shipment of 24 of these animals. These species are posing a threat to 300 types of animals and plants while the destruction they cause to agriculture is to a tune of $200 million every year. A standing example of this can be seen in Australia where wild rabbits of European origin by eating up the crops and pastures are bringing down agricultural productivity while posing a challenge to the native species by fighting for scarce resources, as per a report in. Courtesy wikimedia commons)Īt times one wrong move can have a cascading effect that can be felt for several decades. Invasive rabbits in Australia cause loss of agricultural produce and also threaten the existence of several species of plants and animals (Pics.
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