Did you know that there is a really interesting connection between the name España and rabbits – and that the devastating decline of the Iberian Lynx is intimately bound up in both?

Well, there are good reasons to believe that the name of Spain (España) derives from the Phoenician word ‘ispanihad’ which evidently means ‘land of rabbits’. This word was adopted by the Romans who called Spain ‘Hispania’ which, over time, became España.

No-one is certain about this derivation which is constantly disputed. Indeed, there are arguments to suggest that España came from the Greek ‘Hesperia’ which means ‘land of the setting sun’ i.e somewhere to the furthest west of civilised knowledge (as it existed then).

Equally, some scholars believe that the name España comes from the word ‘Hispalis’ which means ‘city of the Western world’ – with others maintaining that España came from i-spn-ya, Phoenician for “the land where metals are forged”.

However, my money (although not too much of it!) is on ‘Ispanihad’ and the ‘land of rabbits’.

Why?

Because it appears that the European wild rabbit was indigenous to the Iberian peninsular and evolved there some 4,000 years ago before spreading out across the rest of Europe and many other parts of the world. Interestingly, the Romans made coins in Hispania in which a rabbit is featured at the feet of a woman – and Pliny the Elder wrote about Spain being plagued by rabbits to such an extent that the Roman Emperor Augustus sent ferrets to the Balearic Islands to control them.

Meanwhile, earlier this year, scientists found fossils (some five million years old) of giant rabbits on the island of Minorca that grew to about six times the size of a normal rabbit. There is no proof that these huge bunnies were ever in mainland Spain but Minorca is only a short hop away – and would seem to confirm Spain’s long history of having rabbits, one way or another.

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So, the derivation of España as having come from a connection with rabbits fits rather neatly with the European variant that we now consider as common and yet derived, almost certainly, from Spain.

As to the Iberian Lynx, rabbits and Spain?

Well, the stunningly beautiful Iberian Lynx is on the very edge of extinction with very few surviving wild Lynxes to be found in Spain. Tragically, ten years ago, there may have been only around 100 Iberian Lynxes in the wild – with the Iberian Lynx being the most endangered species of cat in the world and the most endangered carnivore in Europe.

And yet, not long ago, the Iberian Lynx was spread widely across Spain – which is where the connection between rabbits and Spain comes in!

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The favourite food of the Iberian Lynx is rabbit. In fact, although Ibrian Lynxs will eat rats and mice their favourite food, by far, is rabbit and an adult Lynx will need to eat something like a rabbit a day to remain fit, healthy and able to breed. This, of course, in the ‘land of rabbits’ was clearly no problem for thousands of years.

However, in 1953 Myxomatosis (a particularly disgusting man-made disease) was unleashed on rabbits and this, over the next twenty years, utterly decimated the rabbit population. Rabbit mortality rates were as high as 95-100% and meant that the natural food of the Iberian Lynx (and many other creatures in Spain) vanished. For the Iberian Lynx Myxomatosis was the worst possible thing to happen and led to the extinction of Lynxes across Spain – literally for want of food.

Unfortunately, just as the danger of Myxomatosis subsided and the rabbit population started to make a recovery it was hit by a lethal virus called Rabbit Haemorrhagic Disease. Almost as virulent as Myxomatosis this virus further destroyed the already weakened rabbit populations in Spain.

The end result has been that wild rabbits in Spain are, even now, a relatively unusual sight with the Iberian Lynx left in its current, desperately precarious state. Indeed, it would be remarkable for you to ever see one in the wild.

The odd thing is that the rabbit seems to have no importance whatsover in the culture of Spain – apart from being eaten in vast numbers. Perhaps it is too humble and unglamorous a creature for any country to adopt as something emblematic?

How different it would have been if the etymology of España had, perhaps, come from the Iberian Lynx. I suspect then that the Iberian Lynx would have become an integral part of Spanish culture – and one easy for the Spanish to be proud of and to take to heart. But what would ‘Spain’ have been called if the Phoenicians had named Spain the ‘Land of the Lynx’?

If you are an expert in ancient Phoenician, I should be interested to know…

Nick Snelling