BALTIMORE, March 24 (UPI) -- A U.S.-led science team has discovered the oldest known record of rabbits -- a 53 million-year-old rabbit's foot found in West Central India.

Johns Hopkins anatomy Professor Kenneth Rose said the fossil predates the oldest previously known rabbits by several million years and extends the record of the whole category of the animal on the Indian subcontinent by 35 million years.

Previous fossil and molecular data suggested rabbits and hares diverged about 35 million years ago from pikas -- a mousy looking member of the family Ochotonidae in the order of lagomorphs, which also includes all of the family Leporidae, encompassing rabbits and hares.

But the team led by Rose found their rabbit bones were very similar to Chinese rabbit fossils that date to the Middle Eocene epoch, about 48 million years ago.

"What we have suggests diversification among the Lagamorpha group -- all modern day hares, rabbits and pikas -- may already have started by the Early Eocene," said Rose.

The research that included scientists from Belgium's University of Ghent; Garhwal University in Uttaranchal, India; and the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences appears in the February issue of the Proceedings of the Royal Society.