Black hares - what kind of animals and where do they live

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:47

Are there black hares? Here are the rabbits - easily. Viennese black rabbit, for example, or New Zealand, or other breeds. But, the rabbit is still not a hare at all. For all their similarities, these are different animals. And if you look closely and read the literature about both, they are completely different. They even have a different set of chromosomes!

Melanists

So are there black hares? There are. Just like albinos (animals are only white), there are so-called melanists. In the latter, the color is due to the presence of an excess amount of coloring pigment in the wool - melanin. Hence the black color. But such an animal is very rare, like everything anomalous (according to some reports, there are especially many melanistic hares among the individuals of the Manchurian hare population, and even then, somewhere only about 0.5%).

Probably, due to the rarity of this creature, a folk sign is also remembered: "I saw a black hare - great luck awaits you in life."

The black cub of a hare could hardly grow up - it would be very difficult for him to hide in the wild and protect himself from predators, and from human hunters too. Although trophies in the form of black earedthere were, of course. It is known that the first acquisition of the Darwin Museum was a stuffed white hare-melanist.

Pay attention to the photo of a black hare below: in the top row, just the Manchurian hare-melanist, in the bottom row - the ashen hare and on the right - the hare, the carrier of excess melanin.

And then more details about two black hares - a mammal and a mollusk.

Tree Climbing Hare

On the territory of the two islands of the Japanese Ryukyu archipelago, a descendant of the most ancient hares that lived more than twenty million years ago, in the Miocene geological epoch, lives. They call it the Japanese Tree Hare or the Climbing Hare. There is another name - the black hare Amami (in honor of one of the islands of the archipelago). An interesting point: sometimes "Japanese rabbit" is also found in this set of names. Indeed, this hare is very different from the long-eared hare we are used to. In appearance - a rabbit or a typical rodent.

The fur of the climbing hare is soft, the color is from dark brown to black-brown. The body length does not exceed 53 cm, the length of the ears is 4-5 cm, the tail is no more than 2-3.5 cm. The weight of the animal usually ranges from 2 to 3 kg. Quite small. Of course, there is no comparison with more than seventy-centimeter length of a brown hare and its weight up to 6 kg.

The black Amami hare lives in burrows and, like all members of its family, is nocturnal.

At the ends of the front paws, the animal has long claws, thanks to whichcan dig in the ground, looking for the roots of plants suitable for food. Thanks to the same natural adaptations, it deftly climbs trees. It digs holes from 30 cm to 2 meters, at the end of which it arranges a sleeping chamber (but it can also rest in a hollow). Moves in short dashes, cannot run fast and rarely jumps. This hare feeds on plant foods; its favorite delicacy is nuts and fruits.

The black Amami hare is endemic (living only in the named lands). It is endangered and listed in the Red Book. Today it is considered a natural treasure of the country and one of the symbols of Japan. Individual individuals of the Climbing Hare are kept in zoos in Japan. They also try to breed it on specialized farms

Once upon a time, the Japanese people had a belief that wood hare meat has a special healing power. Plus, it's just delicious. Hence most of the troubles in the animal. In addition, the forests of the islands have been significantly affected by logging. Hares had to move and develop groves and fern thickets on coastal rocks and hills. Plus, mungo mongooses, previously endemic only for Madagascar, were brought to the lands of the archipelago. Let's add other species of mongoose, which also live here and are not averse to feasting on a paired hare. Well, and the raids of feral dogs. And the viper that has been living here for a long time, the eternal enemy of this hare - the yellow-green keffiyeh. In total - the natural enemies of Japanese hares - more than enough, and the population of these black islanders has to constantlyfight for a place in the sun.

Black and brown hare

In general color it is close to the black described above, but this is only from the back. The abdomen is lighter. Let's mention it in passing.

The black-brown hare lives in Mexico. It feeds on fleshy shoots of cacti. For habitat chooses open spaces, rocky and sandy valleys. The female brings the offspring in open nests. Hares are not born so helpless, and soon after birth they are ready to actively explore the surroundings.

Aplisia

This is a genus of large mollusks that live in many warm seas of the globe. And one of the representatives of Aplysia - the black sea hare, otherwise called the California hare, is found only off the coast of this state. Moreover, it rarely appears on the shallows, only in order to lay eggs, mainly a mollusk - an inhabitant of the depths.

Aplysia are quite varied in color, and the black sea hare is also the largest of the posterior gastropods. One of the specimens encountered, for example, weighed about 14 kg, and was almost a meter long!

This marine creature got its name for the general color and horns-tentacles located on the head and similar to hare ears. It can be said that the mollusk has almost no shells - it is thin, reduced and covered with a mantle from above.

At first glance, especially in human hands, the black sea hare is a large, shapeless, slippery, pitch-colored creature. Generally speaking, quite creepy looking.

AAplysia and this particular species are famous for the fact that they have long and successfully allowed neuropsychologists to study the functioning of the nervous system. The fact is that this slug has only 20 thousand nerve cells, and they are quite large - often about a millimeter in diameter. Their work can be observed with the naked eye. Which makes these molluscs convenient model organisms for scientific research.