dr. bill writes:
80 years ago, when vacuum cleaners were not common,
and didn't have hoses to reach under beds,
lint would accumulate, and drafts caused by opening
doors would roll a layer of lint into little elongated
balls that looked a bit like mice, especially when a
draft moved them. I remember my mother calling them
'dust mice' when I was quite small.

this suggests that perhaps dust mice came first and eventually evolved
into bunnies as more raw material became available for their feeding.