Joanne Burrows, age 12, of St. Laurent, Quebec, Canada, for her question:
How do hares and rabbits differ?
The cuddly rabbit travels in bouncy little hops. He cannot hope to escape dogs and other speedy chasers, so he leads a timid life and depends on hiding himself. The long legged hare streaks along in bounding leaps. He can outrun most of his hungry foes so he lives a bold brave life out in the wide open outdoors.
If you can't tell the hares from the rabbits, don't feel too embarrassed. Not so long ago, even the experts had them classed with the ratty rodents. Then they took a closer look, and nowadays the hares and rabbits share a separate order of their own with the cottontails and the furry little pikas, alias the whistling hares.
The name of their order is Lagomorpha, which means the hare type animals. It is simple to separate the pika family in this group because these small bunnies have perky, rounded ears. The hares and the rabbits are larger than pikas and naturally they wear those long floppy ears.
The popular names for the hares and the rabbits often mislead us, for the frisky Jack rabbit is actually a hare and so is the fluffy snowshoe rabbit. The cuddly cottontail rabbit is not quite a rabbit and not quite a hare. He has a separate family in the Lagomorpha order.
It was necessary to set up this separate order because the rodent group is based on special gnawing teeth. Hares and rabbits also have gnawing teeth, but they have a couple of extras. Also, their teeth are partly covered with enamel and rodent teeth are not. We ordinary folk rarely get a chance to identify an animal by his teeth, even if we knew how. But there are several more obvious features we can use to sort the hares from the rabbits.
As a general rule, adult hares are bigger and a whole lot bolder than adult rabbits. When startled, a long legged hare takes off at high speed in bounding leaps. A startled rabbit is, likely to freeze and stay perfectly still, trusting that his color blends with his background to make him invisible. Gnat's more, the rabbit has A burrow hideaway. If startled near his home, he may decide to bolt down out of sight. Chances are, we can separate the adults when we know how. It is even easier to separate baby rabbits from baby hares, which are called leverets. The hare has no hideaway burrow and her nest is a hollow form in the grass, often under a low growing bush. Her leverets are born with fur coats and wide awake eyes, almost ready to go go go. Newborn rabbits are blind, deaf and almost bare. And their fur lined nest is deep in an underground burrow.
Young hares are nearly ready for life on their own in a month or so, though their mother usually keeps an eye on them for a few more weeks. The helpless baby rabbits can hear and see after about ten days and soon they grow fluffy fur coats. But they do not leave their burrow for several weeks and usually they never stray far from their original homes.