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HOME --> CLASS MAMMALIA
--> ORDER LAGOMORPHA
--> FAMILY Leporidae
--> GENUS Lepus
--> SUBGENUS Eulagos
SPECIES Lepus (Eulagos) europaeus
| Author: | Pallas, 1778. | | Citation: | Nova Spec. Quad. Glir. Ord.: 30. | | Common Name: | European Hare | | Type Locality: | Not stated; restricted by Trouessart (1910), to Poland (see discussion in Ognev, 1940:140, who further restricted it to SW Poland). | | Distribution: | Open woodland, steppe and sub-desert: from S Sweden and Finland to Britain, throughout Europe (not Iberian Penin. south of Cantabria and the Ebro River, or south of Siena in Italy), to W Siberian lowlands; south to N Israel, N Syria, N Iraq, the Tigris-Euphrates valley and W Iran. SE border of range (Iran) from S Caspian Sea south to Persian Gulf (54EE); see Angerman (1983:19). Introduced to Ireland, SE Canada-NE USA, S South America, Australia, New Zealand and several islands, including Barbados, Réunion, and the Falklands. | | Status: | IUCN – Lower Risk (lc); however, this once common species is now declining across Europe and a reevaluation of its status is likely to place it in one of the IUCN threatened categories (Schneider, 1997). | | Comments: | Subgenus Eulagus (Averianov, 1998; Gromov and Baranova, 1981; Gureev, 1964). This species was earlier placed in capensis by Petter (1961a) based on what was interpreted as a cline in morphological characters (mainly size) from NE Africa eastward across the N Arabian peninsula and the Middle East, and northward through Israel to Turkey. Sympatry between large "europaeus" and small "capensis" (= tolai) in Kazakhstan, without evidence of hybridization (Sludskii et al., 1980) was interpreted as overlapping ends of a Rassenkreis. Angermann's (1983) re-analysis indicated a marked discontinuity between smaller "capensis" (incl. arabicus) and larger europaeus running from the E Mediterranean coast (C Israel) through Iran, and on this basis we separate europaeus from capensis and tolai. East of the border of the range of europaeus in Iran, tolai occurs, apparently in allo- or parapatry with europaeus. Insular populations in the E Mediterranean were assigned to this species (Ellerman and Morrison-Scott, 1951), but need to be reviewed. See also comments under tolai and tibetanus. |
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