What's a Hare? Isn't It Just a Rabbit? Actually, No

What's a Hare? Isn't It Just a Rabbit? Actually, No

This article relates to Raising Hare

While commenting on Chloe Dalton's memoir Raising Hare, about her experience rescuing a wild baby hare, some of our First Impressions reviewers mentioned the common misperception that a hare is a kind of a rabbit. So what exactly is a hare?

Hares and rabbits are related, but not the same. The hare is in the genus Lepus and falls into the Leporidae family, which is the same family rabbits belong to. Part of the reason the nomenclature is confusing is that these animals are often referred to interchangeably or in contradictory ways, presumably because humans have always gotten them mixed up or been unsure of how to categorize them. For example, what is commonly known as a jackrabbit in North America is actually a hare. Hares look similar to rabbits but generally have longer ears and legs, and are larger overall. Their powerful back legs allow them to reach speeds of up to around 50 miles per hour, whereas rabbits can only get up to about 35. (In fact, the brown hare is the fastest land mammal found in Britain.) Hares are also more solitary than rabbits, who live in large groups. Both animals favor grassy areas and eat soft plants, but hares integrate more woods and grains into their diets.

There are around 30 species of hares, and they can be found in North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Humans seem to have had a relationship with hares as far back as the Stone Age, and evidence exists that people in Neolithic China were feeding hares and living alongside them in farming communities. In the Greco-Roman world, hares were associated with aspects of sexuality and gender, including love, lust, fertility, and hermaphroditism. The Romans believed that eating them could make a person more attractive for a certain number of days. In other folklore traditions, they have been portrayed as powerful and dangerous. The hare is a common villain in African mythologies and has been considered bad luck in British superstition. The way different cultures have perceived hares is complex, but the animal has generally maintained a reputation for being special or extraordinary, and there may be some truth to that. Aristotle made the seemingly bizarre claim that hares could get pregnant while already pregnant, and scientists have since discovered that this is actually the case.

When asked in an interview with BookPage what the most interesting thing was that she had to research in the writing of her book, Dalton comments on this aspect in particular: "Hares have the very rare ability to carry two separate pregnancies at the same time—a phenomenon known as superfetation. I had the privilege of watching this happen in real life."

Like all animals today, hares are threatened by climate change. Snowshoe hares, for example, rely on seasonal color changes to their coats for camouflage that protects them from predators, but less predictable weather conditions can lead to camouflage mismatch. Dalton says that writing her book has made her more conscious of the vulnerability of wild animals like the hare. "The hare is an animal that has never been domesticated," she observes. "It clings on, despite the destruction of the natural landscape. It is a symbol of beauty, resilience and survival against the odds. This experience has made me more hopeful about the possibility of finding a better balance between humans and nature, and the rewards for all of us if we can manage that."

Hare transitioning from its summer to winter coat
Colin Canterbury/USFWS, via Wikimedia Commons

Filed under Nature and the Environment

This article relates to Raising Hare. It first ran in the March 12, 2025 issue of BookBrowse Recommends.