On the domestication of rabbits.

One of my greatest fascinations is with the history of the development of domestic animals (and the natural history of these animals.) A few moments ago, quite by accident, I discovered this (emphasis mine):

Credit for the actual domestication of rabbits goes to the early French Catholic monks. Because they lived in seclusion, the monks appreciated an easily obtainable meat supply. Their need to find a food suitable for Lent caused them to fall back on an item much loved by the Romans - unborn or newly born rabbits, which are called “Laurices.” (Laurice was officially classified as “fish” in 600 A.D. by Pope Gregory I, and thus permissible during Lent.) This strange taste, combined with the need to keep rabbits within the monastery walls, created the conditions that led to proper domestication and the inevitable selection of breeding stock for various characteristics and traits.

From the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy website.

(On a related tangent, I read some time ago that capybara is (was?) eaten during lent in South America, because it was considered to be "fish". But I hadn't heard about fetal rabbits.)

365 Urban Species. #244: Ash Tree Bolete

Photos by cottonmanifesto. Location: Parkway Road, Brookline. The mushroom on the center right has been turned upside-down, showing the spore-producing underside.

Urban species #244: Ash tree bolete Gyrodon merulioides

A bolete is a mushroom that has a porous spore-bearing surface, rather than the more familiar "gills" (for an example of a gilled mushroom see the amethyst deceiver). The pores of the ash tree bolete are uniquely and rather beautifully shaped. The top of the mushroom looks rather like a carelessly poured pancake, irregularly kidney-shaped, resting on an off-center stalk. The fungus that produces this mushroom always grows in association with the roots of ash trees including green ash, Fraxinus pennsylvanica, a very common urban tree. According to one study* this fungus is dependent on an aphid which feeds on the ash tree, providing nourishment for the fungus as a by-product. Despite this very specific collection of organisms that need to be present for this mushroom to appear, it is not uncommon. Ash tree bolete is edible, despite the fact that it violates an old mushroomer's rule: when bruised, it's flesh stains blue; supposedly an indication that it is poisonous. However, it is not a very well sought-after mushroom, except by slugs and other invertebrate grazers.



* The connection between Gyrodon merulioides and wooly ash aphids was apparently made in a 1987 paper by M.C. Brundrett and B. Kendrick, in the journal Symbiosis. I have found numerous sources using this paper as a reference, but this seems to be the only study describing this relationship. I have not read this paper.