Mammals

Hare

Lepus · also called hares, jackrabbits

Least Concern ↓ herbivore Temperate grassland Desert Mountains

A hare is what a rabbit looks like when it commits fully to open ground. No burrow, nowhere to hide, so instead: longer legs, longer ears, a top speed near 70 km/h, and young that are born furred and running. The jackrabbits are hares; so are the Arctic and mountain hares that turn white for the snow.

Overview

Hares are the genus Lepus, around 33 species across Eurasia, Africa, and North America, in open habitats from prairie and steppe to desert, tundra, and alpine meadow. They are herbivores — grass and herbs in summer, twigs and bark in winter — and, like rabbits, they re-ingest their soft droppings. Unlike rabbits, a hare never digs a burrow; it rests above ground in a scraped hollow called a form.

Born ready to run

With no safe nest, hare young — leverets — are born fully furred, eyes open, and able to run within an hour. The mother scatters them, hidden separately, and visits each once a day at dusk to nurse for a few minutes. Everything else is speed: a brown hare hits ~70 km/h and cuts sharply, usually enough to lose a fox or coyote.

Boxing and winter white

The “mad March hare” boxing is almost always a female fending off a male she is not ready to mate with. The Arctic, mountain, and snowshoe hares moult brown-to-white each autumn for snow camouflage, triggered by day length — a growing problem as snow seasons shorten and white hares stand out on bare ground. Jackrabbits use their oversized ears to shed desert heat as well as to listen.

Status

Most of the ~33 species are Least Concern, but the trend is decreasing. The European brown hare has fallen steeply across intensively farmed Europe, the mountain hare is retreating upslope, and the Tehuantepec jackrabbit and hispid hare are Endangered.

Hare: common questions

What is the real difference between a hare and a rabbit?

They are separate groups within the same family. Hares, all in the genus Lepus, are larger, with proportionally longer ears and hind legs, and they are animals of open country that never dig burrows, living and resting above ground in a form. Rabbits are smaller and stockier, and most species dig or shelter in burrows and live socially. The decisive difference is the young. A hare has nowhere safe to give birth, so its leverets are born fully developed, furred, open-eyed, and able to run almost at once. A rabbit gives birth in a fur-lined underground chamber, so its kits are born naked, blind, and helpless. Confusingly, the jackrabbit is a hare, and the so-called Belgian hare is a breed of domestic rabbit.

Why do hares box in spring?

The boxing, which gave rise to the phrase mad as a March hare, is nearly always a female rebuffing a male. During the breeding season males follow and pursue females, and a female that is not yet ready to mate will round on a persistent suitor, rear up on her hind legs, and strike at him with her front paws, sometimes pulling out tufts of fur. It works as a test of the male, since only a fit, determined male keeps coming back. It looks most dramatic in early spring in northern Europe because that is when the vegetation is short enough to see it clearly, but the behaviour continues through the long breeding season.

Which hares turn white in winter, and why?

The mountain hare of northern Europe and Asia, the Arctic hare of the far north of North America and Greenland, and the snowshoe hare of the North American forests all moult to a white or mostly white coat for winter and back to brown or grey for summer. The switch is controlled by the shortening and lengthening of daylight, not by temperature or snow, and it provides camouflage against snow from predators such as foxes, lynx, and raptors. This has become a problem where climate change is shortening the snow season, because a white hare on brown ground is highly conspicuous, and studies have shown higher predation on mismatched hares.

Can hares and rabbits interbreed?

No. Despite living side by side in many places and being close relatives, hares and rabbits cannot produce offspring. They have different numbers of chromosomes, the European rabbit having 44 and the brown hare 48, and they are separated by millions of years of independent evolution and by very different breeding biology. The animal sometimes sold as a jackalope or called a rabbit-hare hybrid is a hoax or a misidentification. Within the hares, some closely related species can hybridise where their ranges overlap, such as the mountain hare and the brown hare, but a rabbit and a hare cannot.

Sources & further reading

Written by HideShark Editorial Team · reviewed by HideShark Science Desk. Published September 10, 2026. Last updated September 10, 2026.

Quick facts

Scientific name: Lepus
Diet: Grasses, herbs, and clover in summer and a woody winter diet of twigs, buds, bark, and shoots, cropped with the front teeth and fermented in a large hindgut, and, like rabbits, hares re-ingest their soft droppings to pass the food through a second time
No burrow, no hiding: Hares do not dig burrows and spend their whole lives above ground, resting by day in a shallow scraped hollow called a form, usually against a tussock or clod, and relying on stillness, camouflage, huge ears, and a flat-out sprint rather than a bolt-hole
Young born ready to run: Because there is no safe nest, hare young, called leverets, are born fully furred with their eyes open and can run within an hour, and the mother leaves them scattered and hidden separately, visiting each once a day at dusk to nurse for only a few minutes
Among the fastest land mammals for their size: A brown hare can reach around 70 km per hour and turn sharply at speed, using powerful hind legs, a flexible spine, and a zigzag running style, and the snowshoe hare and jackrabbits are similarly quick, which is often enough to outrun foxes, coyotes, and birds of prey
Boxing matches are females hitting males: The mad March hare behaviour of standing on the hind legs and trading blows is usually a female fending off a male she is not ready to mate with, testing his persistence, rather than two males fighting, and it happens through much of the breeding season, not only in spring
Winter white: The Arctic hare, mountain hare, and snowshoe hare moult from brown or grey to white each autumn for camouflage in snow and back again in spring, a change triggered by day length, and as snow cover becomes less reliable with climate change, white hares on bare ground are increasingly easy for predators to see
Jackrabbits are hares: The animals called jackrabbits in North America are true hares in the genus Lepus, named for their donkey-like ears, and the black-tailed and white-tailed jackrabbits use their enormous ears to dump heat in the desert as well as to listen for danger
Range: Native to Eurasia, Africa, and North America, with introduced populations in South America, Australia, New Zealand, and on many islands, in open habitats of almost every kind including steppe, prairie, farmland, desert, tundra, moorland, and alpine meadow up to around 5000 m, generally avoiding dense forest, since a hare needs room to see danger coming and to run.
Conservation status: Least Concern ↓ ≈ Most of the roughly 33 hare species are assessed as Least Concern, but several are declining and a few are threatened, including the Tehuantepec jackrabbit of Mexico and the hispid hare of the Himalayan foothills, both Endangered, and the Ethiopian and broom hares with tiny ranges. The European brown hare has fallen steeply across intensively farmed parts of Europe through loss of the mixed farmland, hedgerows, and rough grass it needs, while the mountain hare is retreating upslope as the climate warms in the wild