Mountain Hare: Description, Habitat, and Seasonal Color Change
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The mountain hare is one of the hare species found across the territory of the former USSR. Here is a description of the mountain hare.
The mountain hare is noticeably smaller than the brown hare. Its weight ranges from 2.5 to 5.5 kg. Compared with the brown hare, the mountain hare looks somewhat rounder and more compact. Its ears are shorter — when bent forward they only just reach the nose, whereas the brown hare's ears extend beyond it — its tail is rounder and also shorter, and its paws are broader and more thickly furred.
Where does the mountain hare live?
The mountain hare lives across a wide range, with the largest specimens found in the tundra of Siberia and the smallest in Transbaikalia and the Far East. The mountain hare is a typical forest dweller, but it favours forest that has glades and clearings, well-developed undergrowth and understory of deciduous species, and an abundant, rich herbaceous cover. Continuous, dense, monotonous stands of coniferous or deciduous forest are not to the mountain hare's liking.
At the northern edge of its range the mountain hare lives even in treeless tundra, sticking to thickets of shrubs. To the south it enters the forest-steppe, keeping to the isolated woodland groves.
What makes the mountain hare distinctive?
The most distinctive feature of the mountain hare is that its coat colour changes sharply with the season of the year. In summer it is reddish-brown, in winter it is snow-white — with only the tips of the ears remaining dark, and sometimes a scattering of dark hairs noticeable on the upper side of the tail.
The mountain hare appears in the immediate vicinity of human dwellings far less often than the brown hare. This is explained first of all by its forest habitat. Heavy human traffic through grounds inhabited by the mountain hare, however, does it no particular harm. It settles in easily even in fairly large suburban parks, among all sorts of amusements and crowds of strollers.
The mountain hare's track is broad. Its paws are heavily furred, it spreads its toes wide, and it moves easily across the loosest snow, as though wearing snowshoes.
The mountain hare is very widely distributed: in the tundra, in the forest zone, and across most of the forest-steppe zone. It is absent from the Caucasus and from Crimea. This description of the mountain hare makes it possible to tell it apart from the rest of its relatives.
