On Aug. 8, the calls started rolling in to Colorado Parks and Wildlife: Scary-looking rabbits were hopping around Fort Collins. These weren’t your standard cute, fluffy bunnies; they had horn-like growths protruding from their faces and bodies. People on social media described them as “zombie” and “demon” rabbits and noted their resemblance to Frankenstein. One Fort Collins resident told a local news station that she had seen a rabbit that looked like it had “black quills or black toothpicks sticking out all around his or her mouth.”

The rabbits didn’t hop out of the set of a horror flick: They have cottontail rabbit papillomavirus, a skin disease that leads to alarming-looking growths. “It exhibits as these wart-like growths on their face—sometimes they're smaller, like little nodule

See Full Page