Rabbit vs Hare: Key Differences in Looks, Babies and Homes

Key differences at a glance

Rabbits and hares both belong to the family Leporidae in the order Lagomorpha, which also includes pikas. They are relatives, not different sexes or ages of the same animal. All true hares and jackrabbits belong to a single genus, Lepus, while “rabbits” are spread across about ten other genera, including the European rabbit (Oryctolagus) and the cottontails of the Americas (Sylvilagus).

In Europe, the comparison is usually between the European rabbit and the European hare, also called the brown hare. The table above compares those two species, and the sections below explain each difference.

Size, ears and legs

A European hare is roughly twice the weight of a wild European rabbit. Adult hares typically weigh about 3–5 kg (6.6–11 lb), compared with about 1–2.5 kg (2.2–5.5 lb) for rabbits.

The easiest field marks are the ears and legs. A hare’s ears are noticeably longer than its head and have black tips; a rabbit’s ears are shorter and lack the black tips. Hares have long, powerful hind legs and a lanky, rangy build, and they move with a loping gait. Rabbits look rounder and more compact and tend to scurry in short hops.

Color helps too. The European hare has a warm, tawny or golden-brown coat with a black-topped tail, while the wild rabbit is grayer brown with a tail that is brown above and white below. Hares also have large amber eyes set high on the head.

Burrows vs forms: where they live

European rabbits are diggers. They live in colonies in warrens, networks of tunnels and chambers that can be used for generations. When danger threatens, they dash underground.

Hares never dig burrows. A hare spends the day crouched in a form, a shallow scrape in the grass or soil that fits its body. It relies on camouflage and keeps very still, ears flattened, until the last moment, then bursts away at speed. Hares favor open farmland, grassland and steppe where they can see predators coming.

Not every rabbit is a burrow-digger, however. North American cottontails, such as the eastern cottontail, also rest in forms above ground and dig only shallow nest scrapes, but they are still rabbits because of how their young develop.

Babies: kittens vs leverets

This is the most reliable difference. Rabbit young, called kittens or kits, are altricial: born after a pregnancy of about 30 days, they are naked, blind, deaf and helpless. A European rabbit doe gives birth in a separate fur-lined nest burrow, and the young do not open their eyes until about 10–11 days old.

Hare young, called leverets, are precocial. After a pregnancy of about 41–42 days, they are born fully furred, with their eyes open, weighing about 100–150 g (3.5–5.3 oz), and can move around almost at once. The mother leaves them hidden in separate spots and returns briefly to nurse them around sunset. Read more in What is a baby hare called?

Speed and escape

Both animals are prey for foxes, birds of prey and many other hunters, but they escape in different ways. Rabbits are sprinters that rarely feed far from cover. They run in a zigzag for a short distance and vanish into a burrow or thicket.

Hares are built for endurance. Long legs, a large heart and wide nostrils let them outrun predators in open country. The European hare can reach about 60–70 km/h (37–43 mph) and makes sudden sharp turns to shake off a chaser. For more, see How fast can a hare run?

Social life and behavior

European rabbits are social animals that live in groups with dominance hierarchies, share warrens and defend group territories marked with scent and dung piles. They warn each other of danger by thumping their hind feet.

Hares are mostly solitary, though they may gather loosely to feed on good fields. Their most famous behavior is “boxing” in spring: mad March hares chase each other and stand on their hind legs to strike with their front paws. The boxers are often females fending off over-eager males. Learn more in Why do hares box?

Where they overlap and how to tell them apart in the field

Across much of Europe, including Britain, rabbits and brown hares share the same farmland, and both are most active around dusk and dawn. A few clues help when you see one at a distance:

• Where it runs. A rabbit heads for a hedge, bank or burrow a short distance away. A hare usually runs straight out across the open field, often far into the distance.
• How it sits. A resting hare lies flat in a form in the middle of a field, ears pressed along its back. Rabbits sit near cover, often in groups, with a warren’s bare earth entrances close by.
• Numbers. Several animals grazing together near a bank are almost always rabbits. A single large, long-eared animal alone in an open field is likely a hare.
• Tracks and signs. Rabbit warrens, scrapes and piles of small, round droppings mark rabbit country; hares leave no burrows at all.

Can rabbits and hares interbreed?

No confirmed hybrids between rabbits and hares exist. Although they look similar, they belong to different genera that separated millions of years ago and have different numbers of chromosomes: 44 in the European rabbit and 48 in hares. That makes successful breeding between them extremely unlikely.

Confusing names: jackrabbits and Belgian hares

Common names often mix the two up. Jackrabbits, such as the black-tailed jackrabbit of the western United States, are hares, as are the snowshoe hare and the Arctic hare. The Belgian hare, on the other hand, is a breed of domestic rabbit bred to look like a hare. All pet rabbits descend from the European rabbit; hares have never been domesticated.

Which is more threatened?

The European hare is listed as Least Concern by the IUCN, although many populations in western Europe have declined since the 1960s because of changes in farming. The European rabbit is listed as Endangered because of steep declines in its native range in Spain, Portugal and France, even though it is an invasive pest in places such as Australia.