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Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio,

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Speaker 1: Hey Brainstuff. Lauren Bogbaum here one heading off to visit

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Speaker 1: the Mad Hatter and March Hare. In the classic Lewis

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Speaker 1: Carroll story Alice in Wonderland, Alice utters the March Hare

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Speaker 1: will be much the more interesting, and perhaps, as this

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Speaker 1: is May, it won't be raving mad, at least not

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Speaker 1: so mad as it was in March. The concept of

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Speaker 1: the crazy March Hare dates back to at least the

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Speaker 1: start of the hundreds, when English playwright John Heywood wrote

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Speaker 1: and be as brainless as a March Hare. While hares

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Speaker 1: and rabbits are two distinctly different creatures, the hair is

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Speaker 1: slightly larger with brown tips on its ears of both

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Speaker 1: are known for going a little wild around the start

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Speaker 1: of March. Not all that coincidentally, late February or early

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Speaker 1: March also marks the start of the breeding season for

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Speaker 1: these creatures, and that wild reputation is likely tied to

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Speaker 1: mating rituals. As winter comes to an end and spring approaches,

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Speaker 1: the male rabbit begins his search for female rabbits to

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Speaker 1: mate with after the long winter dry spell. When he

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Speaker 1: finds a rabbit that's interested, they engage in according ritual

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Speaker 1: that can take many forms, and some rabbits show their

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Speaker 1: interest by running and racing, others leap or hop, and

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Speaker 1: some even take to boxing or fighting. After copulation, the

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Speaker 1: male may stick around for a few hours before he's

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Speaker 1: off in search of his next conquest. Male rabbits are polygamous,

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Speaker 1: and dominant males will attempt to breed with all willing

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Speaker 1: females on their turf, which can span as much as

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Speaker 1: twenty five acres. In areas with large concentrations of rabbits,

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Speaker 1: there's quite a bit of cording going on. Humans who

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Speaker 1: witnessed these rituals might easily wonder why the rabbits seem

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Speaker 1: to be a little off of leading to the concept

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Speaker 1: in question. Hairs also do their fair share to contribute

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Speaker 1: to this mad reputation. These docile looking creatures use their

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Speaker 1: powerful front legs to engage one another in rough and

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Speaker 1: tumble boxing matches. While animal experts once believed these matches

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Speaker 1: were mostly between male hairs fighting over female hairs, they

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Speaker 1: now know that unwilling female hairs box overly amorous males

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Speaker 1: to make it clear that they're not interested. As for

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Speaker 1: Alice's mad March hair, in May, two months into breeding season.

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Speaker 1: He may have had some time to sow his wild

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Speaker 1: oats a bit, but anyone familiar with the story knows

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Speaker 1: his madness was still going strong when Alice met up

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Speaker 1: with them four rabbits and hairs. The wild behavior that

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Speaker 1: begins in March can extend well into the autumn thanks

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Speaker 1: to the animals relatively long breeding season. Today's episode is

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Speaker 1: based on the article do Rabbits really go crazy in March?

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Speaker 1: On how Stuff works dot Com, written by Bambi Turner.

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Speaker 1: Brain Stuff is production of by Heart Radio in partnership

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Speaker 1: with how stuff Works dot Com, and it is produced

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Speaker 1: by Tyler Clang. Four more podcasts from my heart Radio

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