The hares and the rabbits are animals which, at first glance, are very Similar, which is why many people confuse them. Although both belong to the leporidae family (Leporidae), are completely different species, size and behavior being their main differences.
Because they are prey animals, they evolved and adapted to escape at high speeds from their predators, however, hares are less social than rabbits, said Philip Stott, a wildlife ecologist at the University of Adelaide in Australia, during a conversation with National Geographic.
Veronica Farias González, researcher at the Natural Resources Laboratory of the Biology, Technology and Prototypes Unit (UBIPRO) of the Iztacala Faculty of Higher Studies of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) answered the question:What is the difference between hares and rabbits?
The expert pointed out in an interview with Ciencia UNAM that, although similar in morphology, the legs and ears of hares are longer than those of rabbits, while their main difference lies in their physiology.
Farias said that hares have better adaptations that ensure that their offspring survive and mature from birth. Lebrates (kids) come into the world much more developed than newborn rabbits; They are covered in hair and with their eyes open.
Hare babies, unlike rabbit babies, are not born in burrows, they are born in a deep space above the ground or under bushes. These adaptations allow them to walk, jump and run within a few days.
The researcher said during the interview that the rabbits (as baby rabbits are known) are born in burrows, which are covered with wood hair, with their eyes closed and are completely dependent on their mother, of whom They take a long time to separate.
Another aspect that makes hares different from rabbits is how they behave when faced with predators. Farias said that hares are experts at covering long distances in a short time, with savannahs and grasslands being their preferred territories.
Rabbits prefer to lose their predators by running in a zigzag pattern to find a burrow among the dense vegetation.
Michael Sheriff, ecologist Penn State in University Park from Pennsylvania, USA, said in an interview for NatGeo that hares do not live underground, as they prefer to spend their lives on the surface, unlike rabbits that have burrow systems.
While this tends to be a determining factor among rabbits, there is one species that, according to Sheriff, is outside the norm: the cottontail, native to the American continent that does not burrow.
Speed is crucial for hares, being a common factor in multiple aspects of their life because, as Stott told the magazine, their mating ritual consists of the female testing the male by making him chase her for several kilometers. .
If the male manages to catch her, he will be able to mate with the female. “(If not) he was poor father material anyway,” Stott admitted.
According to the professor, hares, especially the European hare, can run at 37 body lengths per second, compared to 23 for cheetahs.
Stott considers hares to be “poor pets” because their quick reflexes, which help them escape from all kinds of predators, would make life difficult as a domestic animal, unlike rabbits.
