For many, today is a very important religious holiday. It's also a day of chocolates, families and excited children - a beautiful thing indeed.

If you've ever wondered why Easter involves chasing after chocolate eggs hidden by a giant, suspiciously efficient rabbit, you're not alone. The whole thing actually has its roots in old Pagan traditions, where rabbits (famous for their enthusiasm in the baby-making department) were long-regarded as symbols of new life and rebirth. Skip ahead to 18th-century Germany, and you’ll encounter the “Osterhase” or “Oschter Haws”, a mythical bunny who snuck around laying eggs in carefully built nests for well-behaved children.

Why this particular rabbit lays eggs instead of having babies the traditional way has to do with the eggs themselves. Eggs have long been a symbol of new beginnings (and, let’s be honest, they’re easier to decorate than, say, a litter of newborn rabbits). Somewhere along the way, someone decided that chocolate eggs were much more fun than real ones, and the Easter Bunny developed a sweet tooth.

And while the bunny gets most of the PR, it’s not the only animal moonlighting as an Easter delivery agent. In Switzerland, it’s a cuckoo that drops off the goods, and in parts of Germany, a fox gets the job done. Honestly, it’s less of a coherent mythology and more of a chaotic springtime animal recruitment drive - but when the result is free chocolate, nobody’s asking too many questions.

Full marks to the German fox though - proof that you can reinvent yourself and move past your public reputation as a sly predator!

Not all animals are so friendly, in folklore or otherwise. Colombia is famous for many things, including a population of hippos that absolutely shouldn't be there. When druglords get big ideas, it's time to be afraid. In her column this week, Dominique Olivier tells the story of Colombia's hippos. This is what happens when people treat the world as a theme park>>>

It's a shorter Weekender this week because of the holiday. Still, in this week's Fast Facts, you'll find an appropriately-themed set of facts about chocolate.

Have a lovely Easter weekend!

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An assortment of facts that will only take you five minutes to read.

• The scientific name for chocolate, theobroma cacao, literally means “food of the gods.” It was coined in the mid-1700s by Carl Linnaeus, the Swedish naturalist who invented the way we classify animals and plants and who clearly had his priorities straight.

• Britain might’ve gotten hooked on chocolate even earlier if it weren’t for an unfortunate mix-up. In the 16th century, a Spanish shipment of cocoa beans drifted off course and landed near British shores. Its British salvagers took one look, assumed the cargo was a pile of sheep droppings, and promptly set it on fire.

• In the 17th century, chocolate caused a full-blown theological meltdown among Catholic monks. Two orders ended up feuding over whether melted chocolate counted as a drink and could therefore be consumed during fasting days. Eventually, Pope Alexander VII had to step in and officially declare it a drink (and probably made a lot of monks very, very happy).

• In France and Spain, drinking chocolate started off as a luxury reserved for aristocrats. But in England, it found a home among intellectuals and political troublemakers. By the 1660s, King Charles II got so nervous about the radical chatter brewing in chocolate and coffee houses that he tried to shut them down altogether.

• White chocolate exists thanks to a bunch of stubborn Swiss children. In the 1930s, doctors wanted to get hospitalised children to drink vitamin-enriched milk, but the kids thought it was baby food and refused. The solution was to stir in some cocoa butter. The result wasn’t just a hit with the kids, and it also accidentally created white chocolate. Bonus!