Here are other factors to consider when shopping for a chocolate Easter bunny:

MILK, DARK, OR WHITE CHOCOLATE?

Most chocolate bunnies are made in milk chocolate, dark chocolate and white chocolate versions. (OK, there’s also peanut butter, but we’re sticking with the classics here.) Local chocolatiers told us milk chocolate is by far the most popular, followed by dark and then white. Based on our admittedly unscientific survey, men tend to prefer milk chocolate, while more women eat dark chocolate. Most white chocolate fans are children, which is unsurprising given how sweet it is. If you see a white rabbit, chances are it’s a shape that can sell despite the lack of love for white chocolate. … Just go ask Alice.

HOLLOW VERSUS SOLID

You could break a tooth biting off the ears of a solid chocolate Easter bunny, but most kids will tell you that’s what they prefer, and for good reason – it’s more chocolate. Duh.

But it’s interesting to look at the age-old, hollow-versus-solid debate from a candymaker’s perspective. Art Dillon of Haven’s says if a bunny is a foot tall or higher, they make it hollow because a solid bunny that big would be too expensive. Hypothetically speaking, a 16-inch solid bunny would weigh six pounds, he said, and the chocolate would cost about $25 a pound.

Andy Wilbur, owner of Wilbur’s of Maine, says his company stopped making hollow bunnies because customers were pressing on the rabbits to see if they were hollow, breaking them, and then returning them to the shelf.

At Dean’s Sweets in Portland, traditional bunnies are semi-solid; the mold is half filled with chocolate and then shaken up to create really thick walls – at least a quarter-inch thick. Dean Bingham, the owner of the candy shop, says it’s not about keeping the price low but about cooling the chocolate evenly. Uneven cooling can affect the mouth feel on a hollow bunny: “It will taste just about the same,” Bingham said, “but it won’t have the same effect on your tongue.”

FIRST BITE: EARS OR FEET?

Last year, The Laryngoscope, a medical journal for ear, nose and throat doctors, published findings from a study by researchers at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit that focused on the seasonality of “traumatic auricular amputations in rabbits.” Dr. Kathleen Yaremchuk and two of her colleagues in the hospital’s Department of Head and Neck Surgery researched the phenomenon online (they Googled it) and found that 59 percent of the “rabbit-eating predators” who filled out online surveys preferred to eat the ears first, while just 4 percent started with the tail or feet. Thirty-three percent indicated they had no preference.

“Reconstructive efforts should be based on the degree of the missing auricle and the need to return the confectionery symbol back to its original shape,” the doctor wrote. “The futility of such an exercise should be considered as well, because often the rest of the rabbit soon succumbs to a similar fate.”