Steven Hittlei age 110 of Sioux City, Tows, for his question:
How does a rabbit change his color with the seasons?
The true rabbits and the cute cottontails make only slight seasonal changes in their coloring and some make no change at all. But certain of our native hares make dramatic changes from rusty brown or ashy brown in the summer to snowy white in the winter. Some of these fellows are called rabbits because it is no easy mater to tell the difference between a rabbit and a here.
The biggest of our native bunnies is the Arctic Hare who thrives on the bleak tundra of the far north, This hardy fellow sleeps out in the open and takes shelter in a thicket only during the cruelest blizzard. All summer long he wears a dull brown coat to match the mottled brown earth, But winter finds him clothed in fluffy white to match the snow, Our prairie hares alias the white tailed hack rabbits enjoys life from the slopes of the Rockies clear across the plains and from Saskachewan in the north to New Mexico in the south. In the summer he wears a coat of light buff and come winter he too dons a thick coat of snowy white,
The most charming of all our changeable bunnies is# without doubt the snowshoe alias the varying hare. Not quite so large as his changeable cousins, he measures 18 inches from nose to stubby tail and tips the scales at about five pounds. In summery he wears a furry coat of reddish brown with soft white on his tummy. Winter finds him dressed in a whisper of white and some people think he changes color in a single night,
This however, is not true. Nor is it true that the hairs of his furry coat change from brown to white. He changes color by molting. Come falls a few dark hairs fall out and white hairs grow in to replace them. For a few days or maybe weeks he is a pinto rabbit with a patchwork coat of brown and white.
This usually happens around the first snowfall, when the ground too is a patchwork of brown and white. If he stays still, it is no easy matter to spot him against his background. However, if he runs he is an easy target. The change over period, when the varying hares is neither all brown nor all white.
By the time the snow has covered the ground to stay all winter, the varying hate is all fluffy white. He flies over the ground in giant leaps like a white cloud and no eye is sharp enough to follow him, His winter coat is very thick, especially the fur under his feet, He runs with the extra long toes on his back feet spread out wide and his furry hind legs act like snowshoes to help him speed over the soft snowy patches and the hard icy patches.
Only the tips and the edges of his ears are black, and this is also true of his changeable cousins. They too change their colors by molting in the fall and in the spring. The black tips and edges of the ears remain the same all year round.