Lepus americanus

Geographic Range

Snowshoe hares are found throughout Canada and in the northernmost United States. The range extends south along the Sierras, Rockies, and Appalachian mountain ranges.

• Biogeographic Regions
• nearctic nearctic
  • native native

Habitat

Snowshoe hares are most often found in open fields, fence rows, swamps, riverside thickets, cedar bogs and coniferous lowlands.

• Habitat Regions
• temperate temperate
• terrestrial terrestrial

• Terrestrial Biomes
• tundra tundra
• taiga taiga
• forest forest

• Wetlands
• swamp swamp
• bog bog

• Other Habitat Features
• agricultural agricultural

Physical Description

Snowshoe hares range in length from 413 to 518 mm, of which 39 to 52 mm are tail. The hind foot, long and broad, measures 117 to 147 mm in length. The ears are 62 to 70 mm from notch to tip. Snowshoe hares usually weigh between 1.43 and 1.55 kg. Males are slightly smaller than females, as is typical for leporids. In the summer, the coat is a grizzled rusty or grayish brown, with a blackish middorsal line, buffy flanks and a white belly. The face and legs are cinnamon brown. The ears are brownish with black tips and white or creamy borders. During the winter, the fur is almost entirely white, except for black eyelids and the blackened tips on the ears. The soles of the feet are densely furred, with stiff hairs (forming the snowshoe) on the hind feet.

• Other Physical Features
• endothermic endothermic
• homoiothermic
• bilateral symmetry bilateral symmetry

• Sexual Dimorphism
• female larger

Reproduction

Groups of males congregate around estrus females, following the females as they move about their home ranges. Mating is polygynandrous (both males and females have multiple mates).

• Mating System
• polygynandrous (promiscuous) polygynandrous (promiscuous)

Breeding season for snowshoe hares runs from mid-March through August, when the testes of the male begin to regress. Gestation lasts 36 days. When parturition approaches, female hares become highly aggressive and intolerant of males. They retire to a birthing area, where they have prepared an area of packed down grasses. Females give birth to litters of up to 8 young, although the average litter size is usually two to four young. Litters born late in the season tend to be larger than litters born in the spring. Females are polyestrous and may have up to four litters a year, depending on enviromental conditions. Males and females become mature within a year of their birth.

• Key Reproductive Features
• iteroparous iteroparous
• seasonal breeding seasonal breeding
• gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate)
• sexual sexual
• fertilization fertilization
• viviparous viviparous

Young snowshoe hares are precocial. They are born fully furred and able to locomote. The young hide in separate locations during the day, only coming together for 5 to 10 minutes at a time to nurse. The female alone cares for them until they are weaned and disperse, about four weeks after they are born.

• Parental Investment
• precocial precocial
• pre-fertilization
  • provisioning
  • protecting
    • female
• pre-hatching/birth
  • provisioning
    • female
  • protecting
    • female
• pre-weaning/fledging
  • provisioning
    • female
• pre-independence
  • provisioning
    • female

Lifespan/Longevity

In the wild as much as 85% of snowshoe hares do not live longer than one year. Individuals may live up to 5 years in the wild.

Behavior

Snowshoe hares are typically solitary, but they often live at high densities, and individuals share overlapping home ranges. They are active at low light levels and so are most often seen out and about at dawn, dusk, and during the night. They are also active on cloudy days.

During the daylight hours, hares spend a great deal of time grooming, and they take fitful naps. Most activity is restricted to pathways, trampled down "roads" in the vegetation that the hares know very thoroughly.

Hares like to take dust baths. These help to remove ectoparasites from the hares' fur.

Snowshoe hares are also accomplished swimmers. They occasionally swim across small lakes and rivers, and they have been seen entering the water in order to avoid predators.

• Key Behaviors
• terricolous
• saltatorial saltatorial
• nocturnal nocturnal
• crepuscular crepuscular
• motile motile
• sedentary sedentary
• solitary solitary
• territorial territorial

Home Range

During its active period, a hare may cover up to 0.02 square kilometers of its 0.03 to 0.07 square kilometer home range.

Communication and Perception

Snowshoe hares have acute hearing, which presumably helps them to identify approaching predators. They are not particularly vocal animals, but may make loud squealing sounds when captured. When engaging in aggressive activites, these animals may hiss and snort. Most communication between hares involves thumping the hind feet against the ground.

• Communication Channels
• acoustic acoustic

• Perception Channels
• visual visual
• tactile tactile
• acoustic acoustic
• chemical chemical

Food Habits

The diet of snowshoe hares is variable. They browse on green grasses, forbs, bluegrass, brome, vetches, asters, jewelweed, wild strawberry, pussy-toes, dandelions, clovers, daisies and horsetails. The new growth of trembling aspen, birches and willows is also eaten. During the winter, snowshoe hares forage on buds, twigs, bark, and evergreens. They have been known to cannibalize the remains of dead conspecifics in winter months. At all times, it is important for hares to reingest certain feces. Because much of the digestion of food occurs in their hindguts, in order to extract all of the available nutrients from their food, they must cycle it through their digestive system a second time.

• Primary Diet
• herbivore herbivore
  • folivore folivore

• Animal Foods
• carrion carrion

• Plant Foods
• leaves
• wood, bark, or stems
• flowers

• Other Foods
• dung

Predation

Snowshoe hares are experts at escaping predators. Young hares often "freeze" in their tracks when they are alerted to the presence of a predator. Presumably, they are attempting to escape notice by being cryptic. Given the hare's background-matching coloration, this strategy is quite effective. Older hares are more likely to escape predators by fleeing. At top speed, a snowshoe hare can travel up to 27 mile per hour. An adult hare can cover up to 10 feet in a single bound. In addition to high speeds, hares employ skillful changes in direction and vertical leaps, which may cause a predator to misjudge the exact position of the animal from one moment to the next.

Important predators of snowshoe hares include gray foxes , red foxes , coyotes , wolves , lynx , bobcats and mink .

• Anti-predator Adaptations
• cryptic cryptic

Ecosystem Roles

Snowshoe hares are important prey animals in their ecosystem.

Economic Importance for Humans: Positive

Snowshoe hares are utilized widely as a source of wild meat. In addition to this, they are an important prey species for many predators whose furs are highly valued.

• Positive Impacts
• food food

Economic Importance for Humans: Negative

Hares may damage trees, especially during periods of high population density.

Conservation Status

Snowshoes hares are common throughout their range. Their rapid reproduction makes it unlikely that they will become a major concern for conservationists.

Other Comments

Snowshoe hares have been widely studied. One of the more interesting things known about hares are the dramatic population cycles that they undergo. Population densities can vary from 1 to 10,000 hares per square mile. The amplitude of the population fluctuations varies across the geographic range. It is greatest in northwestern Canada, and least in the rocky Mountain region of the United States, perhaps because there is more biological diversity in more southerly regions. The lack of diversity in the Northwestern portion of the hare's range means that there are fewer links in the food chain, and therefore fewer species to buffer either dramatic population increases or decreases. Disease may play a part in population fluctuation. Pneumonococcus, ringworm, and salmonella have all been associated with population crashes.

Snowshoe hares are also famous for their seasonal molts. In the summer, the coat of the hare is reddish brown or gray, but during the winter, the coat is snowy white. The molt usually takes about 72 days to reach completion, and it seems to be regulated by daylength. Interestingly, there seem to be two entirely different sets of hair follicles, which give rise to white and brown hairs, respectively.

Additional Links

Encyclopedia of Life

BioKIDS Critter Catalog

Contributors

Allison Poor (editor), University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.

Nancy Shefferly (author), Animal Diversity Web.

References

Carey, J., D. Judge. 2002. "Longevity Records: Life Spans of Mammals, Birds, Amphibians, Reptiles, and Fish" (On-line). Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research. Accessed May 18, 2007 at http://www.demogr.mpg.de/ .

Kurta, A. 1995. Mammals of the Great Lakes Region . Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Wilson, D., S. Ruff. 1999. The Smithsonian Book of North American Mammals . Washington, D.C.: The Smithsonian Institution Press.

Baker, R.H. 1983. Mammals of Michigan. Michigan State University Press.

Banfield, A.W.F. 1981. The Mammals of Canada. Toronto University Press. Toronto, Buffalo.