Game encyclopaedia
European hare
Lepus europaeus (Pallas, 1778). A large lagomorph of cultivated lowlands, solitary and swift-running, with long black-tipped ears. It does not dig: it lies directly on the ground in a form and gives birth to leverets already furred, with their eyes open — a game animal we think we know, and one that surprises.
Not to be confused with the European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus), a different genus: the hare is larger, solitary, digs no burrow and gives birth on the ground to furred leverets with their eyes open, whereas the rabbit lives in colonies, digs a warren and produces naked, blind young. For the rabbit, see European rabbit; for our animals, see our hares.
Description
The European hare is a large, slender lagomorph measuring 55 to 65 cm in head-and-body length, with a mass of between 3.5 and 5 kg — appreciably larger and heavier than a European rabbit.[7][8] The coat is tawny to grey-brown, paler on the flanks, with a creamy-white belly; the short tail is black above and white below.[7] The most distinctive features are the long ears of 11 to 14 cm, markedly longer than the head and ending in a clear black tip, and the long hind legs (foot of 13 to 16 cm), which carry the animal's full running power.[7][8] Compared with the European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus), the hare is larger, with longer black-tipped ears and far more developed hind limbs, and it relies on its speed in the open rather than fleeing to an underground refuge; for the details of this common confusion, see European rabbit.[7][8] The large eyes, set high and to the sides, provide an almost panoramic field of vision, suited to an exposed life in open terrain.[2][8]
Taxonomy and systematics
The species was described by the German naturalist Peter Simon Pallas in 1778, under the name Lepus europaeus, which remains the valid protonym.[6][3] As the animal has never been transferred out of its original genus, the authority is written without parentheses: Lepus europaeus Pallas, 1778 — unlike the European rabbit, which was reclassified and is therefore cited within parentheses.[3][14] The genus Lepus, erected by Carl von Linné in 1758, brings together the true hares, some thirty species worldwide; the European hare is sometimes placed in the subgenus Eulagos.[5][3] It belongs to the order Lagomorpha, not the rodents: lagomorphs possess a second pair of small upper incisors — the peg teeth, located behind the large incisors — a character that separates them from rodents.[7][2] The family Leporidae is shared with the rabbits, but the genus differs: Lepus for the hares, Oryctolagus for the European rabbit.[3][5] In French, the male is the "bouquin," the female the "hase" — a word borrowed from German — and the young the "levraut"; the verb "bouquiner" denotes the springtime courtship chase.[11]
Buck, doe, leveret
The male is the buck ("bouquin"), the female the doe ("hase," from German), the young the leveret.[11]
Distribution and introduced range
The European hare naturally occupies a vast range extending from western and central Europe to western Asia, from Great Britain and France in the west to Ukraine, the Caucasus and the northern Middle East in the east.[1][8] It is a lowland species, associated with open landscapes, steppes and above all temperate farmland.[1][12] Humans have transported it widely beyond this range: the European hare has been successfully introduced to Ireland, south-eastern Canada and the north-eastern United States, Argentina and Chile, Australia and New Zealand, as well as various islands.[8][15] In several of these regions — notably in South America and Australia — it is now regarded as an invasive introduced species, competing with local wildlife and causing agricultural damage.[15] In France it is present throughout the lowland territory, from the Drôme to the great cereal plains of the Paris Basin, and is one of the most emblematic lowland game animals.[13][4]
Habitat, form and home range
The European hare is above all an animal of open habitats: cultivated plains, meadows, steppes, heaths and field margins, with a marked preference for agricultural mosaics combining crops, fallow land, hedgerows and grass strips.[1][12] Unlike the European rabbit, it digs no burrow: it spends the day crouched in a "form," a simple depression it shapes directly on the ground in the grass, a furrow or beneath a clod, sheltered from wind and view.[7][8] This concealment behaviour — motionless and pressed to the ground until the last moment — is its first line of defence in open terrain.[8] Solitary outside the breeding season, the hare occupies an extensive home range that radiotelemetry studies most often place between 20 and nearly 200 hectares depending on the richness and structure of the habitat.[7][12] The monotony of large modern crop fields, poor in cover and winter resources, tends to enlarge these ranges and weaken populations — a central factor in the hare's decline.[12] Where the rabbit takes refuge underground, see European rabbit, the hare remains dependent on surface plant cover.[7]
Defence by concealment
Motionless and pressed to the ground until the last instant, before relying on the run.[8]
Diet
The European hare is a strict herbivore, at once generalist and selective.[7][16] It feeds chiefly on grasses and wild herbaceous plants, but also draws a large part of its diet from crops — young cereals (wheat, barley, rye), beet, alfalfa and rape — which ties it closely to agricultural landscapes.[16][7] In winter, when grass is scarce, it turns to dry stems, bark, buds and the twigs of young shrubs.[7][8] Diet-selection studies show that it actively seeks diversity and the species richest in energy and nitrogen: on large single-species fields this diversity is lacking, which weighs on the condition and survival of the young.[16][12] Like the other lagomorphs, the hare practises caecotrophy — the reingestion of soft nocturnal droppings — to recover proteins and vitamins produced by the microbial fermentation of fibrous vegetation.[8][2]
Behaviour
The European hare is essentially crepuscular and nocturnal: it moves out to the crops and meadows to feed at nightfall and returns to its form in the early morning.[7][8] Solitary for most of the year, it forms no colonies. Its defence rests on flight: once detected, it bursts from the form and races across open terrain at a speed of 50 to 70 km/h, punctuated by abrupt zigzags and leaps that can exceed 2 metres in height, enough to shake off most predators.[7][8] In spring, the rutting period gives rise to the spectacular upright bouts of the "March hare": this boxing, often wrongly interpreted as a duel between males, most often pits a doe against an over-eager male that she fends off with her forepaws until she is receptive.[7][2] Marking and communication occur through glandular secretions and drumming of the feet; the animal frequents regular resting spots and runs within its range.[7]
Solitary
No colony or organised social life outside breeding.[7]
Reproduction and superfetation
The European hare's breeding season runs from late winter into autumn, generally with three to four litters a year of one to five leverets, most often two or three.[7][10] Gestation lasts about 42 days.[7][9] The species' most remarkable feature is superfetation: the doe can be fertilised again three to four days before giving birth to the current litter, so that two gestations briefly overlap.[9] This mechanism, long doubted and then demonstrated experimentally, shortens the interval between litters from about 42 to 38 days and increases the number of young produced over the season by up to about 35%.[9] The leverets are born precocial: fully furred, eyes open, able to move about shortly after birth, in the form directly on the ground.[7][10] The mother deposits them scattered through the vegetation and rejoins them only once a day, briefly, to nurse them — a strategy that limits predation risk. This development contrasts radically with that of the rabbit kit, born naked and blind at the bottom of a burrow, see European rabbit.[7][8]
Superfetation
The doe conceives a second litter before giving birth to the first: up to about 35% more young.[9]
Hare or rabbit: don't confuse them
The European hare and the European rabbit are regularly confused in everyday language, even though they belong to two distinct genera of the same family Leporidae: Lepus for the hare, Oryctolagus for the rabbit.[3][5] They are not two variants of the same animal. The hare is markedly larger (3.5 to 5 kg), with long black-tipped ears and long legs; the rabbit is smaller, with short ears lacking a black tip.[7][8] The clearest difference lies in the way of life and the birth of the young. The hare is solitary and does not dig: it rests in a simple form in the open, and its leverets are born precocial — furred, eyes open, able to move about.[7][8] The rabbit, by contrast, is colonial and burrowing: it digs a warren where it lives in a group, and its kits are born altricial there — blind, deaf and naked.[8] When disturbed, the hare relies on its speed in open terrain while the rabbit bolts for its burrow.[7][8] This distinction is not merely a matter of vocabulary: it prompted the correction of a confusion on this site. For the neighbouring species, see European rabbit.
Conservation status and decline in cultivated lowlands
At the global scale, the European hare is classified as Least Concern (LC) on the IUCN Red List, following the 2019 assessment: the range is vast and the species remains common, including as an introduced animal.[1] This reassuring category nonetheless masks a marked and documented decline at the regional scale. Hunting-bag statistics show a retreat of European populations over the 20th century, beginning with the industrialisation of agriculture.[1][12] A meta-analysis covering twelve European countries identified agricultural intensification as the primary cause of the decline: the disappearance of crop mosaics, fallow land and hedgerows, monocultures, mechanisation destroying nests and leverets, and plant-protection products depleting resources.[12] To these are added predation, diseases (such as European brown hare syndrome, EBHS) and, in places, poorly calibrated hunting pressure.[12][13] Recent data indicate stabilisation at lower levels, hence the retention of LC status — but the conservation of native populations remains a concern in several countries.[1]
At GIBIS
GIBIS is a game-breeding operation established in Chatte, Isère, since 1951. The hare is offered here for the restocking of territories and for game management: the offer is presented on the our hares page, breeding practice on the our breeding page, and the principles of population-reinforcement operations on the restocking page. This encyclopaedic article remains independent of those pages: it documents the wild species, its biology and its status, with no commercial aim.
A family operation since 1951
Production of feathered game and small game in Chatte, Isère.
Hare for restocking
Animals intended for restocking and hunting: see the our hares page.
Restocking
Population-reinforcement operations are detailed on the restocking page.
References
- ↑Hackländer K. & Schai-Braun S., « *Lepus europaeus* », *The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species* 2019: e.T41280A217911459 — category: Least Concern (LC), declining population, iucnredlist.org, consulted in 2026.
- ↑Wikipedia contributors, « European hare », *Wikipedia* — general synthesis (morphology, distribution, behaviour, boxing), corroborated by the primary sources below.
- ↑ITIS (Integrated Taxonomic Information System), *Report: Lepus europaeus* Pallas, 1778 — classification and authority, itis.gov, consulted in 2026.
- ↑MNHN & OFB, Inventaire national du patrimoine naturel (INPN), *Lepus europaeus* Pallas, 1778 record, inpn.mnhn.fr, consulted in 2026.
- ↑Wilson D. E. & Reeder D. M. (eds.), *Mammal Species of the World*, 3rd ed., Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005 — genus *Lepus* Linnaeus, 1758 and family Leporidae.
- ↑Pallas P. S., *Novae species quadrupedum e glirium ordine*, Erlangen, 1778 — original description of *Lepus europaeus*.
- ↑de Jong M. et al., « *Lepus europaeus* (Lagomorpha: Leporidae) », *Mammalian Species*, vol. 52, no. 997, 2020, pp. 125-142 — morphology, measurements, home range, diet, speed, form and reproduction.
- ↑Smith A. T. & Johnston C. H., *Lepus europaeus* (European hare) account, *Animal Diversity Web* (ADW), University of Michigan, animaldiversity.org, consulted in 2026 — description, precocial leverets, introduced range.
- ↑Roellig K., Drews B., Goeritz F. & Hildebrandt T. B., « Superconception in mammalian pregnancy can be detected and increases reproductive output per breeding season », *Nature Communications*, vol. 1, art. 78, 2010 — demonstration of superfetation in *Lepus europaeus*.
- ↑« Maternal effects on reproduction in the precocial European hare (*Lepus europaeus*) », *PLOS ONE*, 2021, e0247174 — litters, precocial leverets and maternal investment.
- ↑CNRTL, *Trésor de la langue française informatisé*, and Wiktionnaire — etymology of "lièvre" (Latin *lepus*), "levraut," "bouquin" and "hase" (from German), consulted in 2026.
- ↑Smith R. K., Jennings N. V. & Harris S., « A quantitative analysis of the abundance and demography of European hares *Lepus europaeus* in relation to habitat type, intensity of agriculture and climate », *Mammal Review*, vol. 35, 2005 — agricultural intensification as the primary cause of the decline.
- ↑Office français de la biodiversité (OFB) and Fédération nationale des chasseurs, « Lièvre d'Europe (*Lepus europaeus*) » record — lowland game, population dynamics and restocking in France, ofb.gouv.fr, consulted in 2026.
- ↑GBIF Secretariat, *Lepus europaeus* Pallas, 1778, *GBIF Backbone Taxonomy*, gbif.org, consulted in 2026 — nomenclature and authority.
- ↑CABI, *Lepus europaeus* (European hare), *CABI Compendium*, cabidigitallibrary.org, consulted in 2026 — introduced range and invasive-species status outside Europe.
- ↑Reichlin T., Klansek E. & Hackländer K., « Diet selection by hares (*Lepus europaeus*) in arable land and its implications for habitat management », *European Journal of Wildlife Research*, vol. 52, 2006, pp. 109-118 — diet selection in agricultural landscapes.
See also
Gallery
See also
A question about the European hare?
This article is part of GIBIS's game encyclopaedia, a breeder in Chatte (Isère) since 1951. For a question about the species or about our animals, the team answers by telephone or email.