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I feel like all debunking of these “pagan origin” claims can be pretty much summarized as “it’s just not that old, folks.”

They're putting chocolate in the water that's turning the damn bunnies pagan!!

A few decades from now you’ll get folks talking about the pagan origins of elf on the shelf

I think it's funny how many modern myths we have about ancient myths.

Lago Morphin' Pagan Rangers

19th Century Researchers:

"Beats me."

"Beats me, too. Wanna just make something up?"

"Sure, let's do it."

Not only was this video incredibly informative as always, I very much enjoyed the vast amounts of adorable bunny stock footage

As a German I didn’t know that the Easter bunny was a German invention. Just like our way of celebrating Christmas spread world wide and is now not seen as something distinctly German anymore.

It's the annual "Easter is not Pagan" video

In France it’s not unusual to talk about a Easter chicken in addition of the Easter bunny. We even eat chocolate shaped in the form of a chicken !

I support continuing the tradition of the Easter lagomorph 😊

From a farmer's perspective, eggs, rabbits, and lambs are all reliable early sources of animal protein after the lean times of winter. It makes perfect sense that people eat them for a large spring feast. It’s what they had to eat.

We have an Easter Bilby here in Australia as an alternative to the Easter Bunny, which was introduced as a way to raise awareness and money for conservation efforts, but which inadvertently ties into the idea of an 'Easter Critter of Indeterminate Species' idea!

Amateur researcher:This has pagan origins.
Actual ancient pagan:I have no idea what you're talking about.

Male hares are frequently seen fighting each other in the (still empty) fields during rut season, which is about the time around Easter. Eggs were among the first abundant food sources after winter and Lent when stocks were empty and the fruit had not grown yet.  So both hare and eggs can easily be symbolically connected to the beginning of spring.

"Easter Critter of Unknown Origin" sounds like a C-tier horror movie, and I want to watch it

When I was a child my grandpa used to go fishing a lot, and every time he returned home he would bring me a hard boild egg. He would always tell me that while he was out fishing he met a talking hare in the forest and the egg was a gift for me from that hare 🤎 It happened a lot so as a child I thought I had a secret talking hare friend somewhere that looked for my grandpa to gift me an egg. This small family tradition was not tied to a season tho and I know a few people with similar stories. Said hare would gift candies, fruits or berries, but there was always an egg. I would like to know if thats something other countries had as well, or how it's tied to the easter bunny/hare thing. I'm from Belarus btw, so probably some slavic folks will know what i'm talking about

Jewish scholar here: There might be a link between the Easter hare and the" jag den Häs" or "hunt the hare" season in Germany during spring time. In Jewish Haggadahs for Passover from Medieval times we find hare illustrations (14th century mss) because of a linguistic pun. See Hare Hunting in the Haggadah by Hebrew Union College.

When you mentioned other critters and specifically the fox, I suddenly developed this wild, unsupported speculation that the bunny isn't linked to the eggs existing, but to the eggs being hidden - bunnies and foxes are notoriously hard to hunt because they readily disappear into hidey holes.
"Mommy, where are the easter eggs?"
"Probably got taken by rabbits and you'll find them in the places rabbits might hide."