Colours of Wildlife: Scrub Hare
Created | Updated Dec 15, 2019
Scrub Hare
Willem is a wildlife artist based in South Africa. He says "My aim is simply to express the beauty and wonder that is in Nature, and to heighten people's appreciation of plants, animals and the wilderness. Not everything I paint is African! Though I've never been there, I'm also fascinated by Asia and I've done paintings of Asian rhinos and birds as well. I may in future do some of European, Australian and American species too. I'm fascinated by wild things from all over the world! I mainly paint in watercolours. . . but actually many media including 'digital' paintings with the computer!"
Here you see the face of a Scrub Hare, Lepus saxatilis. The scientific name means 'hare of rocky places'. This is one of two species of true hare found in South Africa; the other is the Cape Hare. Scrub hares are somewhat more widespread. It is possible that this species occurs further to the north, indeed into most of sub-Saharan Africa, but I've also read that the species north of South Africa might be the African Savanna Hare; the species blend into each other. The scrub hare as known in South Africa varies, with the southwestern ones being the largest. They can weigh 2-4.5 kg/4.4-10 lbs, with an ear length of 10-15 cm/4"-6". They look very much like Cape hares, but are on average larger, with whiter undersides.
Rabbits and Hares
As I've written in my entry on the Riverine Rabbit, there's actually not a completely clear-cut distinction between a rabbit and a hare. Typical rabbits, though, have the following features: their ears and hind limbs are not as long as those of hares, they give birth to their young in a burrow, and their babies, called kittens, are born naked, blind and helpless. Typical hares, like the scrub hare, have very long ears and hind limbs; they give birth in open hollows or 'forms'; and their young, called leverets, are born with fur and open eyes and can soon move about on their own.
Rabbits and hares, together with Pikas, form an order of mammals called the Lagomorpha. This order is similar to the rodents, but differs in a few ways such as the configuration of the front teeth. Lagomorphs are much less diverse than rodents, but hold their own in certain habitats, where their speed (or for pikas, the many hiding places of their mountain dwellings) enables them to escape predators, and their efficient digestive habits allow them to derive nutrition from coarse vegetation.
Splitting Hares
Hares in South Africa and in Africa have been difficult to classify. In taxonomy, the science of distinguishing different species, there has been two tendencies: one is called 'lumping', in which similar or even barely similar things are all lumped together into one species. The other is called 'splitting', which means considering everything that is just a little bit different from other things as a unique species. In the not-so-distant past, a vogue for splitting led to the recognition of a vast number of species that were barely distinguishable from each other – or indeed, not distinguishable at all. When it comes to hares, in Africa at a time, about thirty different species of Lepus were proposed. Splitting was often based on small differences in the dead specimens brought from Africa to Europe.
It was soon recognized that the splitters were way too enthusiastic. In nature, organisms vary. Individuals, even of the same species, even in the same region, even in the same population, can be very different from each other. It will be obvious if you study a single population where the animals are all mating with each other, that you're not dealing with numerous different species, even though the individuals might look different. Thus the new tendency became to lump these different 'species' together. Only a profound difference was considered enough to justify creating a different species. With the new vogue for lumping, the hares of Africa were reduced from thirty to just two species, the Cape hare and the scrub hare.
But it turns out that the lumpers were also not quite on the ball either. Sometimes it is justified to recognize different species on the basis of small differences in appearance or behaviour. Especially, differences are shown by examining an animal's DNA. Some quite similar-looking things show significant DNA differences that indicate a long period of separate evolution, enough to warrant recognition as separate species.
Thus today we recognize that at least some of the hares previously considered to be scrub hares, might actually be a different species, the African savanna hare. But the hares of Africa are not sorted out yet; additional research might indeed prove several more species to be valid.
The Original Recyclers
Scrub hares (like other hares and rabbits) have a very interesting 'recycling' habit: they re-ingest their own droppings! They actually produce two different kinds of droppings. The hares do their feeding at night. When the food first goes through their digestive systems, it is enriched with B-vitamins from bacteria in the hare's hindgut. From here, the soft droppings are excreted during the daytime after the hare has fed and is now resting in its form. The hare will take the droppings in its mouth and swallow them without chewing. Now that the vitamin-enriched droppings are digested again, the vitamins are absorbed by the stomach and a bit more nutrition is extracted from the droppings. They're passed a second time, when the hare is feeding during the night. This time the droppings are hard and disk-shaped and the hare leaves them after they're excreted.
Hare Habits
Scrub hares are found in a diversity of habitats: savannah, woodland, scrubland, semi-desert, and grassland (provided cover is available). They only need a small amount of shelter; they scrape out hollows called 'forms' amidst bushes or clumps of grass. They fit snugly in these hollows, where they lay tight during the day, their long ears pulled snug along their back. Their grizzled fur is excellent camouflage. Hares will lie still at the approach of a predator, only bursting from their forms if the predator is almost on top of them. This in itself can be quite startling. From here, the hare bounds at great speed, reaching about 60 km/h, 38 mph. It zigzags to make it difficult for a predator to follow. If it escapes, it will make itself a new form in a different location. If caught, it will scream, kick and bite. Many times this is not successful. Hares are hunted by a variety of medium-sized to large predators.
Scrub hares feed mainly on grass. They will eat the leaves, stalks and roots of the grass. They also browse on shrubs, especially where or when not much grass is available. They occasionally make a nuisance of themselves by feeding on growing crops on farms, sometimes digging up peanuts. They feed mainly at night, but will occasionally come out to feed on overcast days. They aren't as active on cold as on warm nights, and when it rains they may not come out to feed at all.
Hare Raising
Unlike most mammals, scrub hares don't have a fixed breeding season. They can give birth even during the driest months of the year. But they do tend to give birth more during the moister spring and summer months. Under optimal conditions, a female can have three or four litters a year. They don't appear to be monogamous; a male will mate with several females, and a female in heat will attract several males (though only one of them may mate with her). Competition between males doesn't seem to have been much observed; other male hares often fight over females, sometimes injuring each other or even her.
After mating, the male leaves the female alone. She gives birth to one to three leverets in a form. They're able to move after a day or two, and will find themselves new locations to hide in. Their mother leaves them alone most of the time; she only comes to them once each day for just a few minutes to suckle them. She pumps the highly protein-and-fat-rich milk at a rapid rate so that they get ample feeding. They are weaned at the age of 17 to 23 days. Those who survive to the age of one year (and most don't) will be sexually mature. In the wild, individuals of this species can reach the age of five years.
Because of its rapid reproductive rate, this hare can easily recover from negative impacts to its populations. It is hunted and persecuted by humans on a small scale, but is not threatened. In spite of its being quite common, there is much about it that we still don't know.
