The Claim
The jackalope is a jackrabbit said to grow antelope-like horns, allegedly capable of mimicking human voices and famously difficult to catch. Taxidermied “specimens” have decorated American roadside diners, gift shops, and bars for nearly a century.
The Evidence
- Countless taxidermy “jackalopes” sold and displayed since the 1930s.
- A real, if rare, viral condition (Shope papillomavirus) that causes rabbits to grow horn-like keratin tumors.
- A long-running Wyoming state “jackalope hunting license” sold as a novelty souvenir.
The Official Story
The jackalope is a deliberate taxidermy invention, generally credited to Douglas Herrick of Wyoming in 1932, who mounted deer antlers on a rabbit as a joke. The Shope papillomavirus is real and can produce startling, horn-like growths on wild rabbits, and likely inspired frontier-era rumors long before Herrick formalized the mash-up as a piece of novelty taxidermy.
File Notes
This is the one case file on the whole site where basically nobody involved, past or present, ever seriously believed it was real — it's tall-tale Americana, not an actual conspiracy.