The Sardinian Pika was a primitive lagomorph native to the Mediterranean islands of Sardinia

Sardinia

Sardinia is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea . It is an autonomous region of Italy, and the nearest land masses are the French island of Corsica, the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Tunisia and the Spanish Balearic Islands.The name Sardinia is from the pre-Roman noun *sard[],...

 and Corsica

Corsica

Corsica is an island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is located west of Italy, southeast of the French mainland, and north of the island of Sardinia....

 until its extinction around the year 1800. The previously disappeared Corsican Pika (formerly Prolagus corsicanus) is now considered to be conspecific with this species.

Early Sardinian authors describe the Sardinian Pika as "a giant rabbit with no tail", and it is believed that the Nuragici

History of Sardinia

Archaeological evidence of prehistoric human settlement on Sardinia island is present in the form of the nuraghe which dot the land. The recorded history of Sardinia begins with its contacts with the various people who sought to dominate western Mediterranean trade in Classical Antiquity: the...

, the ancient peoples of Sardinia, viewed them as a delicacy. The last surviving population probably existed in the island of Tavolara off the coast of Sardinia, where Francesco Cetti

Francesco Cetti

Francesco Cetti was an Italian Jesuit priest, zoologist and mathematician.Cetti was born in Mannheim in Germany, but his parents were natives of Como. He was educated in Lombardy and at the Jesuit college at Monza. In 1765 he was sent to Sardinia to help improve the standard of education on the...

mentions in 1774 the existence of "giant rats of which the land is so abundant that one will crop out of the ground recently removed by pigs".