03/30/2023: The Easter Creature

The Easter Bunny has always been a strange character. They're a rabbit, so why are they distributing eggs? Did they lay the eggs, or are they gathering eggs from other sources to redistribute? If they're gathering the eggs, why does whatever lay the eggs (likely chickens or ducks) allow the Easter Bunny to not only take the eggs away, but also color them? Well, do I have an answer for you!

The Easter Bunny is simply the adult stage of an Easter Creature.

An Easter Creature starts off life in a brightly colored egg, laid by an adult Easter Creature and distributed over hill and dale to give offspring a larger starting territory. They're brightly colored to hopefully convince potential predators that they're poisonous, and this bright coloration appears on the feathers when the creature hatches. If you've ever seen dyed baby chicks around Easter, you may have seen a larval Easter Creature instead.

As a brightly colored chick-like beast, the Easter Creature behaves like a normal chicken for the first few weeks of its life. Unfortunately, being brightly colored, small, and fluffy makes it a seasonal target for human poachers. Generally speaking, there's enough eggs / chicks that don't get found during this harvesting period that a small population of Easter Creatures can survive, but this is why the eggs are scattered and hidden. The eggs are often used in training exercises for small children to learn the trade, but plastic eggs filled with candy or hard-boiled eggs that are dyed manually may be substituted. The gathered chicks are often put in display cages or temporary petting zoos to allow kids to become more familiar with their target.

If an Easter Creature is able to survive, either in captivity or in the wild, it will begin a radical transformation from its larval stage to a pupal stage. This starts off as an egg-shaped coccoon with strips of tinfoil-like material covering the outside. Eventually, the coccoon and its contents grow into a rabbit-shaped form, made from solid chocolate. When the time comes, the Easter Creature will emerge from its cocoon and start life in a rabbit-like stage. The hollow chocolate coccoon is discarded, and is often eaten as a holiday treat. Chocolate rabbits that are solid or have nougat in them are relatively rare, usually because eating a pupal Easter Creature is seen as distasteful for some, similar to eating veal or foie gras.

After emerging transformed from their cocoon, Easter Creatures are generally indistinguishable from other lagomorphs, unlike their distinct coloration in the larval stage. The biggest difference is what they leave as waste: jellybeans. In captivity, when fed Easter candy grass, a healthy adult Easter Creature can produce up to a pound of cheap, sugary jellybeans a day! This is often enough to provide the holiday's supply of candy.

Within a year, the average Easter Creature will then reach its final stage of life: reproduction, distribution of egg offspring, and finally death. All waste production will cease, allowing the Easter Creature to grow to about the size of an adult human over the course of about three months. Now bipedal, the Easter Creature will roam the forests of its territory, searching for a mate. Photographs of Easter Creatures in this stage are often mistaken for Bigfoot, due to the cognitive dissonance of seeing an Easter Creature outside of its associated holiday season, but the two species are unrelated.

Easter Creatures in captivity during this stage are trained to perform at family gatherings, distributing either false eggs or true Easter Creature eggs in a specified location. They're often dressed up in overalls, colorful shirts, bandandas, hats, and other attire for the occasion. Similar to domesticated Mall Santas, small children are often encouraged by adults to interact with the holiday mascot, regardless of how eager the child in question may be to approach. This is partially to get them acquainted with the beasts, and partially because it makes a good photograph to send to all of the relatives that are at the party as well.

So the next time a small child asks you the deal with the Easter Bunny, you know what to tell them!