Interesting take on things. All the differences you point out about the zonker, missing the original didn;t have a throat hackle, but a bib are reasons why it was fair enough to call it a stand alone pattern. The only really commonality it had with the NZ Rabbit was the incorporation of a fur strip still attached to the hide. As a youngster I too would watch at Draper's, but as I got older I found myself tying hundreds of dozens instead

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The only real commonality the Wooly Worm has with the Wooly Bugger (Obvious derivation is evident in the name) is the palmered hackle, In NZ the tailed version had, usually, a Squirrel tail, tail. The Americans came up with both the original worm and then the bugger by using Marabou, pretty long stretch of the bow to think they borrowed the idea from us putting some squirrel in there.
Ummm not wanting to state the obvious, but at the point you "tie in" the tail part of the rabbit strip, you are tying in the tail. I don;t want to be pedantic, but arguing that you are not doing what you are doing is getting just a touch too argumentative over nothing for me. I actually like your pattern, I believe it would be much more effective if some of the strip protruded beyond the tail as this is part of the swimming action the fly is designed for and which makes it such a devastating pattern.