European Hare (Lepus europaeus): Facts, Speed and Boxing

What does a European hare look like?

A European hare is built for running. It has a slender body, very long hind legs and big hind feet, and a much leaner, more angular look than a rabbit. The fur on the back is a grizzled mix of yellowish brown and black, turning more reddish on the shoulders, neck, flanks and legs. The belly is white. The tail is black on top and white underneath, so it flashes when the hare runs away.

The ears are the easiest feature to spot. They are long, often about 10 cm (4 in) measured from the notch to the tip, and each ends in a clear black tip. The eyes are large, amber to golden in color and set high on the sides of the head, giving the hare a very wide field of view. Its nostrils are wide, and it has a large heart for its size, both helpful for long, fast runs.

Unlike the mountain hare, which turns white in winter, the European hare keeps a brown coat all year, though the winter coat can look grayer around the hips and head.

How big is a European hare?

The European hare is one of the largest hares in the world and clearly bigger than a wild rabbit. Males and females are similar in size, with females sometimes slightly heavier.

For comparison, a wild European rabbit usually weighs 1–2.5 kg (2.2–5.5 lb) and has shorter ears without black tips. Our rabbit vs hare comparison sets out all the differences.

Habitat and range

The European hare is native to much of continental Europe, north to around 60 degrees latitude in Scandinavia and Finland, and east through Turkey, the Caucasus and parts of the Middle East into central Asia. Its original home was probably open steppe, and it spread widely as forests were cleared for farming.

People have also moved it far beyond its natural range, mostly as a game animal. It was brought to Britain in prehistoric times; research on bones and DNA suggests the Iron Age rather than the Roman period. Later introductions established it in Ireland, southern Ontario and New York State, much of southern South America including Argentina and Chile, the Falkland Islands, Australia including Tasmania, and New Zealand.

Its favorite habitat today is mixed farmland: a patchwork of fields, grassland, hedgerows and small woods that offers both food and cover. Hares are usually most common in lowlands with mild, fairly dry weather. Large, uniform crop fields with little variety support far fewer of them.

What do European hares eat?

European hares are herbivores. In spring and summer they graze grasses and many kinds of herbs, such as clovers, dandelions and poppies, and they often feed on young cereal and other crops. In autumn and winter they eat winter cereals and other crops, and also nibble buds, twigs and the bark of shrubs and young trees.

They tend to choose the most nutritious plants available, rich in protein and energy, rather than coarse, fibrous ones. That is one reason why varied farmland with field margins and wildflower strips suits them better than huge single-crop fields.

Like rabbits, hares sometimes eat some of their own soft droppings to extract extra nutrients from their food. They feed mainly at dusk and through the night, often travelling a kilometer or more from their daytime resting place.

How fast can a European hare run?

Speed is the hare’s main defense. A European hare can sprint at up to about 70 km/h (43 mph) over short distances, making it one of the fastest mammals in Europe, although top speeds are hard to measure and figures vary between sources. It can keep up a lower but still high speed for long distances, thanks to its powerful leg muscles and large heart.

When chased, a hare does not just run in a straight line. It makes sudden sharp turns and zigzags that can leave a faster predator overshooting, and it may also leap sideways to break its scent trail before settling into cover. Read more in How fast can a hare run?

Behavior and social life

For most of the year European hares live alone, without fixed territories. Each hare uses a home range that overlaps with those of many neighbors, often around 30–300 hectares (75–740 acres) depending on the habitat. Where food is plentiful, several hares may feed in the same field, which gives every hare more time to eat because others are also watching for danger.

By day a hare rests in a form, a shallow hollow in grass, soil or snow that it presses out with its body. Lying flat with its ears laid back along its body, a hare is very hard to see, and it will often stay still until a person or predator comes very close before bursting away at speed.

Hares are mostly silent. They communicate with body language, such as raised or lowered ears, and by drumming their feet. A frightened or injured hare may give a loud scream, and mothers make soft calls to their young.

Boxing and the “mad March hare”

In late winter and spring the normally shy, nocturnal hares become far more visible. Groups of males follow females across open fields in daylight, chase one another and sometimes rear up on their hind legs to strike out with their front paws. This is the famous “boxing.”

For a long time people assumed boxing hares were rival males fighting over females. Close observation has shown that most boxing involves a female fending off a male that is pursuing her too closely before she is ready to mate. Males do also fight among themselves. The full story is in Why do hares box?

Reproduction and leverets

European hares have a long breeding season, roughly from January to August, with a peak in spring. Pregnancy lasts about 41–42 days. A female can raise two to four litters a year, usually of two to four young, although litters of one to five or more occur. Remarkably, a pregnant female can conceive a new litter shortly before giving birth to the current one, which helps hares produce more young in a single season.

The young hares, called leverets, are born on the surface rather than in a burrow. They arrive fully furred, with their eyes open, and weigh around 100–130 g (3.5–4.6 oz). Within days they spread out and lie hidden in separate spots nearby. Once a day, shortly after sunset, they gather at the birthplace and their mother visits to nurse them for only a few minutes, then leaves again.

Leverets can nibble plants at about two weeks old and are weaned at around four weeks. They can breed at several months old, usually in the year after their birth. See What is a baby hare called? for more about how leverets grow up.

Lifespan, predators and threats

A European hare can live for 12 years or a little more, but very few do. Many leverets die in their first weeks, from predators, cold, wet weather or farm machinery, and most wild hares that reach adulthood live only a few years.

The main natural predator across Europe is the red fox, which takes many leverets in spring. Other predators include wildcats, stoats and other mustelids, buzzards, goshawks, golden eagles in mountain areas, and crows that prey on young leverets. In North America, foxes and coyotes take introduced hares.

Disease also matters. European brown hare syndrome, caused by a virus related to the one that causes rabbit hemorrhagic disease, can kill many hares, and a newer strain of rabbit hemorrhagic disease virus has also been found in hares in some countries.

Conservation status

The IUCN Red List classes the European hare as Least Concern (assessed in 2019), because it has a huge range and is still common in many places. However, numbers have fallen across much of Europe since the 1960s. The main causes are thought to be the intensification of farming, with larger fields, fewer hedgerows, fewer crop types and more frequent mowing, together with predation and disease.

In Britain, brown hare numbers are thought to have dropped by more than 80% during the 20th century, and the species became one of the first priority species of the UK Biodiversity Action Plan. Several countries, including Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Norway, list the hare as near threatened or threatened on their national red lists. Wildlife-friendly farming, with field margins, hedgerows and mixed crops, can help hares recover.

Myths and facts

“Boxing hares are two males fighting.” Usually not. Most boxing is a female holding off an over-eager male, although males do fight too.

“A leveret found alone has been abandoned.” Almost never. Leverets are left alone on purpose, and the mother returns at dusk. A healthy leveret is best left where it is.

“Hares are just big rabbits.” Hares and rabbits are both lagomorphs, but hares belong to a separate genus, Lepus. They live above ground, are bigger and longer-legged, and give birth to furred young with open eyes.

Hares and people

The hare has a long place in European culture. In ancient Greece it was linked to love and fertility, and the Easter Hare of German folklore, recorded by the late 1600s, is an ancestor of the modern Easter Bunny. The phrase “mad as a March hare,” based on the hares’ wild spring chases, has been in English for about 500 years and inspired the March Hare in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Albrecht Dürer’s 1502 watercolor Young Hare is one of the best-known animal paintings in Western art.

The hare has also long been a game animal across Europe. In Britain, hare coursing with dogs was banned in England and Wales by the Hunting Act 2004, and in Scotland under earlier legislation. Today, for many people, watching hares boxing on a spring morning is one of the great wildlife sights of the countryside. Its close relative the European rabbit shares the same farmland but lives a very different life underground.