You aren't the first to find lop breed names a bit confusing. There's the English Lop; a big rabbit that is seen much more often in rabbit shows than in the pet market. The French Lop has been around, like, forever, and has the type that most people expect to see when they think "lop eared rabbit." French are big, too, 10 pounds or more. The Mini Lop is more or less a scaled-down French Lop, and weighs 5-6 pounds, plus or minus a little.The Mini Lop was introduced in the US in the mid 70's, and gained widespread popularity in a relatively short time. With the name "Mini Lop," you might expect that they'd be the smallest of the lop breeds, but they aren't. Shortly after the Mini Lop was introduced, the Holland Lop also arrived here, but it took a little longer to achieve "name recognition." At roughly 3-4 pounds, Hollands (and their long-haired spin-off, American Fuzzy Lops) are the smallest Lops. They are hugely popular; most of the shows that I have attended have had more Hollands entered than any other single breed. The Holland has a lot of Netherland Dwarf in its background, and also employs the dwarfing gene to achieve the compact animal described in the breed standard. This can make identification really tricky, as "false dwarf" Hollands can be as large as smallish Mini Lops. The details of the two breeds are different, though you might need to know both breeds fairly well to know which is a large Holland, and which a small Mini!
Of course, when naming currently recognized Lop breeds, I mustn't overlook the Velveteen Lop, a breed that is still "in the works." It has English type, but is smaller; it also has rex fur. And depending on which group gets their act together first, it is possible that when the Lionhead finally makes its way into the ARBA standard, it may "officially" have lop ears, too!
