Case 005 · Douglas, Wyoming

The Jackalope.

A hare with a rack of antlers became the American West's perfect impossible animal. The mounts are real. The species is not.

Taxidermy originDocumented

Living speciesUnsupported

Hornlike growthsBiologically real

Archive readingFolklore confirmed

01 // The icon

An impossible animal with a documented habitat.

No verified body, breeding population or genetic sample establishes an antlered hare. The jackalope lives somewhere else: taxidermy shops, roadside America and a Wyoming town that chose to keep the joke alive.

Large white jackalope statue with red eyes standing in Douglas, Wyoming — A jackalope landmark in Douglas, Wyoming. This is civic art—not a specimen. Carol M. Highsmith / Library of Congress. Image credit

The familiar body is a jackrabbit or hare carrying deer antlers. The name combines “jackrabbit” and “antelope,” but both halves hide a taxonomic twist: jackrabbits are hares, and North America's pronghorn is not a true antelope.^{[07] [08]}

Many souvenir mounts use deer antlers or antler tips—not pronghorn horns. The object was never subtle, and it was not meant to be.

Archive rule: the physical mount is real evidence of folklore, not evidence of a species.

02 // Modern origin

The shop-floor story holds. The year does not.

Ralph and Douglas Herrick are consistently credited with popularizing the mounted jackalope in Douglas. Surviving accounts disagree on when inspiration struck.^{[01] [02]}

Herrick family recollection

1932

Ralph Herrick's date

In the New York Times obituary for Douglas Herrick, Ralph said a dead jackrabbit slid beside deer horns in the shop and inspired the mount. The obituary explicitly notes that other accounts give later years.

Named family source
Recorded decades later
First mount reportedly sold for $10
Displayed at Douglas's Bonte Hotel

City of Douglas account

1934

The official local version

Douglas's current history page tells the same accidental-composition story but dates it to 1934. The city says the brothers' business helped make Douglas the “Jackalope Capital of the World” by the late 1940s.

Official civic source
Same makers and place
Same core origin anecdote
Different year

Archive date: early 1930s. Choosing 1932 or 1934 as uncontested fact would make the story cleaner than the record.

03 // Before Wyoming

The horned hare was already old.

European artists and natural-history illustrators pictured horned hares centuries before the Herrick mount. These images establish an older motif—not a direct line of transmission and not a hidden species.^{[03] [04]}

Sixteenth-century painting of a horned hare among ordinary hares — Joris Hoefnagel · c. 1575–1580

Historical image

A horned hare on vellum.

Hoefnagel's watercolor and gouache plate places one branching-horned hare among ordinary animals. It proves that the image existed in early modern Europe. It does not document a zoological specimen.

Eighteenth-century engraving labeled Lepus cornutus showing a rabbit with branched horns — Robert Bénard · *Lepus cornutus* · 1789

Natural-history context

A name is not a species.

The 1789 engraving appeared in an encyclopedic natural-history setting. Historical publication explains why horned rabbits could look authoritative without meeting modern standards of specimen evidence.

04 // Anatomy check

The animal and the object separate cleanly.

One photograph shows a living black-tailed jackrabbit. The other shows what human hands add.

Black-tailed jackrabbit standing upright in grass at Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge — Black-tailed jackrabbit · Peter Pearsall / USFWS

Known animal

A hare without horns.

Jackrabbits are hares: long-eared, long-legged animals whose young are born furred and open-eyed. No normal anatomy produces a symmetrical deer-style antler rack.^[07]

Taxidermy jackalope mount made from a hare head and attached deer antlers — Composite taxidermy mount · public-domain photograph

Constructed object

The classic silhouette.

Hare head. Deer antlers. A convincing seam and a story strong enough to finish the illusion. The mount explains the icon without requiring an unknown animal.

05 // Biological analogue

Real rabbits can grow structures that resemble horns.

Cottontail rabbit papillomavirus provides a biological source for some horned-rabbit observations. It does not create antlers.^{[05] [06]}

Biological findingCRPVRabbit-specific virus · skin papillomas · sometimes elongated and hornlike

Lesions—not antlers.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife describes black skin nodules, usually around the head, that can become elongated and hornlike. Wild cottontails often survive and the growths may regress.

The virus is specific to rabbits and does not cause disease in people or other species. It can seriously affect domestic rabbits, which should be evaluated by a veterinarian.

Read the wildlife guidance

Best reading: a real look-alike that may reinforce the legend—not the source of a living jackalope species.

06 // Tall-tale field guide

Douglas tells the joke in-universe.

The city's official page gives the animal a complete impossible ecology. Every detail below is folklore, not a field observation.^[01]

Ninety miles per hour

Speed makes the creature impossible to catch and conveniently difficult to document.

Lightning season

Jackalopes supposedly breed only during lightning flashes, keeping the population naturally rare.

Whiskey and voices

They favor whiskey and mimic cowboys, sometimes calling out false directions to hunters.

June thirty-first

The hunting license is valid from midnight to 2 a.m. on a date that does not exist.

07 // Official status

“Official home” is not “official state creature.”

Douglas's civic claim and Wyoming's statutory symbol list are not the same record.^{[01] [02] [09] [10]}

Metal jackalope silhouette on the Yellowstone Highway bridge in Douglas, Wyoming — Jackalope detail on the Yellowstone Highway bridge, Douglas. Carol M. Highsmith / Library of Congress. Image credit

Fact check · civic versus statutory

Douglas is the official home.

Reporting from the Herrick family history says Governor Ed Herschler pronounced Douglas the jackalope's official home in 1985. That supports a place-based proclamation.

The Wyoming Secretary of State's symbol list does not include the jackalope
A 2001 bill proposed creating an official mythical-creature designation
Best wording: signature creature of Douglas, Wyoming
Avoid: Wyoming's official state mythical creature

08 // Evidence ledger

What is real, what is reported and what is unsupported.

The case becomes clearer when material culture, biology and zoological evidence stay in separate columns.

Material cultureHerrick mounts

Documented

Named makers, a repeatable construction method, commercial production and local display establish the modern object.

Origin history1932 / 1934

Disputed

The core shop-floor account is consistent. The precise year is not.

Historical imageryHorned hares

Documented

Dated European works establish an older motif but no specimen, population or direct Wyoming lineage.

BiologyRabbit papillomas

Documented

A rabbit-specific virus can produce elongated hornlike skin growths. They are lesions, not branching antlers.

Zoological recordLiving species

Unsupported

No verified specimen, breeding population, genetic sample or diagnostic field record establishes an antlered hare.

09 // Timeline

The creature existed on paper before it existed on a wall.

The cultural timeline is secure even where the Wyoming origin year remains open.

c. 1575–1580

Hoefnagel paints a horned hare

A public-domain vellum work establishes the older European image motif.^[03]

1789

Lepus cornutus enters an encyclopedia

Robert Bénard's engraving places the image in a natural-history context.^[04]

Early 1930s

The Herricks build the modern icon

The family account says 1932. Douglas says 1934. Both identify the same makers, shop-floor accident and Wyoming setting.^{[01] [02]}

1933

Rabbit papillomatosis is experimentally documented

Richard E. Shope and E. Weston Hurst publish the foundational infectious-papillomatosis paper.^[05]

1985

Douglas becomes the proclaimed official home

Governor Ed Herschler's wording supports the town's claim without making the jackalope a statutory state symbol.^[02]

2015

The civic landscape enters the Library of Congress

Carol M. Highsmith photographs the Douglas statue and bridge details used in this case file.^{[11] [12]}

Archive assessment · Case 005

The animal was assembled. The folklore grew on its own.

No zoological evidence supports a living antlered hare. The jackalope remains unusually valuable because its other evidence is so good: named makers, surviving mounts, older images, a biological look-alike and a city that made an impossible animal part of its identity.

Cultural phenomenon confirmed. Taxidermy origin documented. Living species unsupported.

John James Audubon's nineteenth-century natural-history illustration of a California hare

10 // Source desk

Objects, records and biology—not repeated lore.

The source trail distinguishes the city's in-universe story, family recollection, official records, historical art and wildlife science.

Case notes

01
City of Douglas · Meet JackOfficial civic history and deliberately tall-tale field guide; gives 1934 for the Herrick origin.
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02
New York Times · Douglas Herrick obituaryReprinted by SFGATE. Quotes Ralph Herrick, records the 1932 claim, competing dates, first sale and 1985 proclamation wording.
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03
National Gallery of Art / Wikimedia Commons · Hoefnagel plateObject record, date, dimensions and public-domain status for the c. 1575–1580 horned hare.
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04
Wikimedia Commons · Lepus cornutusObject record and public-domain status for Robert Bénard's 1789 engraving.
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05
Shope & Hurst · Infectious Papillomatosis of RabbitsOriginal 1933 experimental paper in the Journal of Experimental Medicine.
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06
Colorado Parks and Wildlife · Rabbit PapillomasCurrent wildlife guidance on appearance, transmission, prognosis and rabbit specificity.
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07
National Park Service · Black-tailed JackrabbitSpecies profile clarifying that jackrabbits are hares.
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08
National Park Service · PronghornOfficial animal notes clarifying that pronghorn are not true antelope and explaining their horns.
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09
Wyoming Secretary of State · State SymbolsOfficial state-symbol list; the jackalope is not included.
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10
Wyoming Legislature · 2001 H.B. 0101Official proposed legislation to designate a state mythical creature.
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11
Library of Congress · Douglas jackalope statueCarol M. Highsmith photograph, 2015; no known restrictions on publication.
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12
Library of Congress · Jackalope Bridge detailCarol M. Highsmith photograph, 2015; no known restrictions on publication.
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Horned-hare hero and historical plate

Joris Hoefnagel, c. 1575–1580. National Gallery of Art. Public domain. Resized and toned.

Douglas jackalope statue

Carol M. Highsmith, 2015. Gates Frontiers Fund Wyoming Collection, Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. LC-DIG-highsm-34035. No known restrictions on publication.

Jackalope Bridge detail

Carol M. Highsmith, 2015. Gates Frontiers Fund Wyoming Collection, Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. LC-DIG-highsm-34065. No known restrictions on publication.

Lepus cornutus

Robert Bénard, 1789. Public domain. Low-resolution historical reproduction; not used as a hero.

Taxidermy jackalope mount

SedesGobhani, 2008. Dedicated to the public domain. This is a constructed mount, not a specimen.

Black-tailed jackrabbit

Peter Pearsall / U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Public domain. This known animal has not been digitally altered.

California Hare conclusion image

John James Audubon, c. 1847; Brooklyn Museum. Public domain / no known copyright restrictions.

Research cutoff · 23 Aug 2026No AI imagery · City hunting-license scan linked in source, not republished