Marilyn Iden, age 9, of Gregory, South Dakota:

What is a jackalope?

You wili not find this fellow in your gift Nature Atlas. Nor will you find him in a zoo or even in a museum. Once in a while you may find a stuffed jackalope waiting in a taxidermists shop but you are more likely to find him proudly mounted in a hunter's home ‑ all stuffed of course.

This stuffed jackalope looks exactly like a jackrabbit with a pair of horns on his head. And this is exactly what he is. The stuffing job is a sort of hunter’s joke. Some poor marksman was disappointed but determined to show his skill. He shot a jackrabbit and had the taxidermist mount this animal with a pair of horns on his head.

That is why you will never see a jackalope running around loose. There never was such an animal and most likely there never will be. He is just a very funny joke made up of two animals, the body of a jackrabbit and the horns of some member of the deer family.