Ronald Helm, Jr., age 11, of Strasberg, Pennsylvania, for his question:

In what animal family does the iackalope belong?

Scientists have not placed the jackalope in any of their existing animal fami¬lies. This seems odd because they are very particular about classification and try to place every newly discovered animal in his proper group as soon as possible. Most of us have heard tell of the jackalope and some of us have seen stuffed specimens. And this is just where we run slap bang into the basic mystery. Nobody, absolutely nobody, has ever seen a live and active jackalope. Every known specimen is carefully, very carefully prepared to face the public by a skillful, animal stuffing taxidermist.

This crafty craftsman will explain that the jackalope is a sort of jack rabbit  with antelope horns. True he does look like a jack rabbit and he does have horns.  If you look the situation over more closely, you may notice that the taxidermist is  straining a bit to keep a straight face. And well he might. His odd specimen is a  taxidermist joke to amuse hunters and the wide eyed listeners who think that seeing  is believing. The jackalope is a stuffed jack rabbit with a borrowed branch of ante¬  lope horns on his head. In life, there is no such animal and, naturally, there is no  serious scientific family for spoofs and specimens assembled from assorted animals.