Wild rabbit sitting in green grass, close-up shot

Flopsy the Rabbit: The Wild Rabbit Who Lived to 18

Flopsy was a wild rabbit caught as a baby in Tasmania, Australia in 1964. She went on to live for 18 years and 10 months, a lifespan so far outside the norm for a rabbit that Guinness World Records eventually certified her as the oldest rabbit ever documented. No rabbit before or since has matched the record on file.

Wild rabbits typically live for one to two years in the field, where predators, weather, and disease cut lives short fast. Domestic rabbits do better, with most living between 8 and 12 years under good care. Flopsy blew past both of those benchmarks by years. She died in January 1983, having outlived multiple generations of rabbits that came and went during her time.

Her owner, L.B. Walker of Longford, Tasmania, kept her as a pet after she was found in the wild. Wild rabbits rarely survive in captivity, let alone thrive for nearly two decades. The exact reasons for her longevity were never formally studied. She had no published medical history and no special dietary regimen documented in the public record. She simply lived, year after year, in a domestic setting that kept her safe from everything that kills wild rabbits young.

Veterinarians who study rabbit aging point to a consistent set of factors in long-lived individuals: a steady diet, low stress, protection from predators, a clean living environment, and access to care when something goes wrong. Flopsy had all of those by default. She was not wild anymore. She was safe, fed, and left alone to do what she did naturally.

The record has stood for decades. Various rabbits have come close, and there are accounts of animals reaching 14 or 15 years, but the documented and verified mark belongs to a wild rabbit from Tasmania who ended up in the right hands on the right island at the right time. She did not set out to break any records. She just outlived everything around her.

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Sources

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