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Hare Facts & Worksheets

The common name for small, fast-running mammals, a hare, distinguished for its long ears and legs and short and bushy tail, belongs to the genus Lepus of the family Leporidae.

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The common name for small, fast-running mammals, a hare, distinguished for its long ears and legs and short and bushy tail, belongs to the genus Lepus of the family Leporidae. Similar in size and form to rabbits, hare species are native to Africa, Eurasia, and North America.

See the fact file below for more information on the hare or alternatively, you can download our 21-page Hare worksheet pack to utilise within the classroom or home environment.

Key Facts & Information

OVERVIEW AND DESCRIPTION

  • Hares and rabbits of the family Leporidae and pikas of the family Ochotonidae belong to the order Lagomorpha. Initially categorized as rodents, the lagomorphs are divided based on having a second, small, peg-like upper incisor located behind the first, large, continuously growing front teeth, unlike rodents which only have a single, upper incisor. Moreover, lagomorphs possess relatively huge ears and short tails, and cannot grasp food with their paws.
  • Hares have an extremely large digestive system which they use to break down huge amounts of plant material whose nutrient content is not that easy to extract. The caecum, a pouch that connects the junction of the large and small intestine, appears to be big, reaching ten times larger than the stomach, and contains a rich fauna of bacteria and other microorganisms. These species are also known to feed on their feces to undergo re-digestion and help reach up to five times as many vitamins as in the food they intake, a process called coprophagy.
  • Hares grow soft fur, whose base tends to be brown or gray. They usually have black markings on the fur behind their ears. The large hind feet of the snowshoe hare, Lepus americanus, changes to white during the winter season.
  • Hares differ in size, reaching from 15.8 to 30 inches, and weigh between 3 to 13.2 pounds. They also appear to be a bit larger than rabbits, with longer legs and ears, and seem to run faster than their furry cousins.
  • Unlike rabbits, which appear to be altricial whose young are born blind and hairless, baby hares are born with hair and are precocial, or are gifted with sight.
  • Young hares that are less than a year old are called leverets. A “drove of hares” is the collective noun given to a group of hares.

LOCATION AND HABITAT

  • Hares are found Africa, Asia, and the Americas, but rarely in Australia, New Zealand and other Oceania islands, Madagascar, southern South America, and most of Amazonia.
  • Hares wander more in open areas that span from arctic tundra to deserts to grasslands. European hares generally live in open terrain from arid steppes to forest steppes, leveraging their fast speed and camouflaging with their brown or gray fur among shrubs and rocks to hide from their predators.
  • Snowshoe hares and some mountain hares and Manchurian hares are native to mixed forests or in coniferous forests.
  • In general, hares prefer to reside in simple nests above the ground, compared to rabbits that stay in underground burrows, crevices, or warrens.

BEHAVIOR, DIET, AND REPRODUCTION

  • Most hare species are solitary mammals, although they might socialize during mating season.
  • Both sexes are promiscuous, meaning both males and females do not form lasting pair-bonds, rather they mate with different individuals.
  • European brown hares are normally shy, but their behavior changes in spring, when these hares can be spotted chasing one another around meadows in broad daylight. This scenario tends to be a competition between males to determine dominance; thus, having easy access to breeding females.
  • During spring, hares are seen striking each other with their paws, a theory of the origin of the term “mad as a March hare.” Over the years, this was thought to be an inter-male competition, but studies show that it appears to be a female hitting a male, demonstrating either that she is not yet ready to mate or as a test of the male’s determination to pursue her.
  • Hares may reach considerable distances and have large home ranges, and seem to run away from their predators as a means of escaping; unlike rabbits that stay in the parameter of their safe hiding places and escape predation by running into burrows and holes.
  • Most species of lagomorphs produce distress calls or thump their back feet to signal danger. The large, laterally set eyes of lagomorphs provide a nearly circular field of vision, allowing them to detect motion and stay away from predators.
  • Hares have that keen ability to distinguish odors and communicate largely through smell. Making use of the glands on their cheeks, groin, or chin, hares rub pheromones on their fur during grooming and stack scent marks on rocks or shrubs, or even use urine or feces to mark off their territories or advertise their reproductive status.
  • Just like rabbits, hares are herbivores that feed by grazing on plants, such as grasses, clover, and dandelions, and parts such as leaves, twigs, bark of young trees, roots, and seeds.
  • Their diet consists of large amounts of hard to digest cellulose which is broken down by ingesting their own feces through a process called coprophagia.
  • Hares do not give birth below ground in burrows or warrens like other members of the Leporidae family. Instead, they bear their young in shallow depressions or flattened nests of grass called a form. They are already adapted to the lack of physical protection, so they are able to fend for themselves right after birth.
  • The majority of hares produce a number of offspring annually, although the lack of resources may cause this potential to be suppressed. Hares generally start breeding at a young age, and most regularly produce litters, around four to five times a year.
  • However, in the far north, native hares only give birth to one large litter a year, and in desert situations, some may have smaller litter sizes.
  • Their gestation period lasts about 40 days.
  • Parental care does not matter that much to these species. Mothers nurse their offsprings once a day, only for a few minutes, although the milk is highly nutritious. This rare attention to the hare’s children may be an adaptation to lessen the likelihood of predators spotting the juveniles.

USES

  • Just like rabbits, hares play an ecological role in the ecosystem, especially as a source of food, while humans make use of their economic, culinary, recreational, and aesthetic benefits. They are integral to food chains, consuming large quantities of plant matter and providing food for a number of animals, like foxes, raptors, lynxes, ferrets, and raccoons.
  • Economically, snowshoe hares are vital in the fur trade, especially in Canada, with documentations of their pelts from logs of the Hudson Bay Company since the start of the 1800s.
  • Hares also made an appearance in several folk tales. In African folklore, the hare is known to be a trickster; some of the stories about these species were retold among African slaves in America. Many cultures, including those from India and Japan, portray a hare in the pattern of dark patches in the moon.

Hare Worksheets

This is a fantastic bundle which includes everything you need to know about the hare across 21 in-depth pages. These are ready-to-use Hare worksheets that are perfect for teaching students about the hare, distinguished for its long ears and legs and short and bushy tail, which belongs to the genus Lepus of the family Leporidae. Similar in size and form to rabbits, hare species are native to Africa, Eurasia, and North America.

Complete List Of Included Worksheets

  • Hare Facts
  • Hello, I’m Hare
  • Describing a Hare
  • Hare Stuff
  • A Hare’s Life
  • Hare Spotted
  • Mirror, Mirror?
  • Share Hare Recipe
  • Meet Hare Fam
  • Want To Hare More?
  • A Famous Hare Story

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Link will appear as Hare Facts & Worksheets: https://kidskonnect.com - KidsKonnect, November 18, 2020

Use With Any Curriculum

These worksheets have been specifically designed for use with any international curriculum. You can use these worksheets as-is, or edit them using Google Slides to make them more specific to your own student ability levels and curriculum standards.

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