After many years on the endangered list of animals, Japan'sAmami Black rabbit can finally breathe a sigh of relief -- That's because this year, the rare animal is no longer in danger of dying out! The effort to save the dark-furred rabbit, often called "a living fossil", began in 1921, when the Japanese government promoted it to the status of "natural monument". This meant that it could not be hunted down for food. However, when that did not work, it got yet another promotion to "special natural monument", which meant that the rabbit could not be trapped or hunted. While that helped, it was not enough -- By 2004 with only 2,000-5,000 specimen   left in the wild, the Amami rabbit was officially declared endangered! The reason for the serious population decrease was due to loss of habitat caused by forest clearing for home and agriculture use and the introduction of a new species not native to the island -- the Mongoose. Brought in to get rid of the snake population, the Mongoose instead seemed to prefer the black rabbit. In 2005, the government carried out a strict mongoose capture   order and slowly but surely, the rabbit started to come back. This rabbit live in a rather unusual lifestyle. Its ideal habitat is a forest that features both trees and large grasses -- the former to find acorns   to feed on and the latter, to hide its babies. That's because to protect them from being eaten by their enemies, the Amami rabbit buries them deep into the ground among the grasses and covers them up with dirt during the day. Then, in the middle of the night, still keeping a _ eye out for their enemies, it digs them out from their hiding place and feeds them. No wonder the animal is sometimes called "midnight rabbit". Though many measures have been taken to stop this furry animal from being wiped out from the world, there are many more that are still in danger. We surely hope that officials in other parts of the worldtry their best to save the endangered species. In Amami rabbit's ideal habitat, large grasses are used   _  .
to feed on to protect its babies to hide themselves to give birth to babies