Are black hares found? Here rabbits - easily. Viennese black rabbit, for example, or New Zealand, or other breeds. But, the rabbit is still not a hare at all. For all their similarity, they are different animals. And if you look closely and read literature about those and others - so completely different. They even have a different set of chromosomes!
Melanists
So are there black hares? There are. Just like albinos (animals of white color only), there are so-called melanists. In the latter, the color is due to the presence of an excessive amount of coloring pigment in the coat - melanin. Hence the black color. But such an animal is very rare, like all the anomalous ones (according to some reports, there are especially many melanist hares among the individuals of the Manchurian hare population, and even that, somewhere around only 0.5%).
Probably, due to the rarity of this creature, a popular sign is recalled: "I saw a black hare - you will have great luck in life."
It is unlikely that a black cub at a hare could grow up - it would be very difficult in the wild for him to hide and protect himself from predators, and also from human hunters. Although there were trophies in the form of black eared hunters, of course. It is known that the first acquisition of the Darwin Museum was a stuffed hare-hare-melanist.
Pay attention to the photo of the black hare below: in the upper row, there is just the Manchurian melanist hare, in the lower row the ashen hare and to the right the hare, the carrier of excess melanin.
And then we will tell in more detail about two more black hares - a mammal and a mollusk.
Tree climbing hare
On the territory of the two islands of the Japanese Ryukyu archipelago lives a descendant of the oldest rabbits who lived more than twenty million years ago, in the geological era of Miocene. They call it the Japanese tree hare or Climbing hare. There is another name - the black hare Amami (in honor of one of the islands of the archipelago). An interesting point: sometimes in this set of names there is also "Japanese rabbit". Indeed, this hare is very different from the long-eared habitual to us. In appearance - a rabbit or a typical rodent.
The fur of a climbing hare is soft, color from dark brown to black-brown. The length of the body does not exceed 53 cm, the length of the ears is 4-5 cm, the tail is no more than 2-3.5 cm. The weight of the animal usually ranges from 2 to 3 kg. Quite small. With more than seventy-centimeter long hare-hare and its own weight up to 6 kg, of course, can not be compared.
The black hare Amami lives in holes and leads, like all representatives of its family, a nocturnal lifestyle.
At the ends of the forepaws, the animal has long claws, thanks to which it can dig through the ground, looking for plant roots suitable for food. Thanks to these same natural adaptations, he cleverly climbs trees. Digs holes from 30 cm to 2 meters, at the end of which it arranges a sleeping chamber (but it can also get a rest in a hollow). He moves in short dashes, cannot run fast and rarely jumps. This hare eats vegetable food, nuts and fruits are his favorite delicacy.
The black hare Amami is endemic (living only on named lands). It is endangered and listed in the Red Book. Today it is considered a natural treasure of the country and one of the symbols of Japan. Some individuals of the Climbing Hare are kept in zoos in Japan. They also try to breed it on specialized farms.
A long time ago, the Japanese people became convinced that the meat of a tree hare has a special healing power. In addition, it is just delicious. Hence the majority of animal troubles. In addition, the forests of the islands were significantly affected by deforestation. Hares had to move and develop groves and fern thickets on coastal cliffs and hills. Plus, mungo mongooses, previously endemic only to Madagascar, were brought to the lands of the archipelago. We add other species of mongoose, which also live here and do not mind eating a pair of hare. Well, and the raids of feral dogs. And for a long time the viper living here, the eternal enemy of this hare, is a yellow-green keffiyeh. Total - the natural enemies of the Japanese hares - more than enough, and the populations of these black islanders have to constantly fight for a place in the sun.
Black-brown hare
The overall color is close to the black described above, but this is only from the back. The abdomen is lighter. Mention it in passing.
The black-brown hare lives in Mexico. It feeds on fleshy shoots of cacti. For living, he chooses open spaces, rocky and sandy valleys. Female offspring brings in open nests. Hares are born not so helpless, and soon after birth they are ready for the active development of the surroundings.
Aplizia
This is a genus uniting large mollusks that live in many warm seas of the globe. And one of the representatives of aplizi - the black sea hare, otherwise called the California bunny, is found only off the coast of this state. Moreover, it rarely appears on the shallows, only in order to lay eggs, mainly the mollusk - an inhabitant of the depths.
Aplisia is quite diverse in color, and the black sea hare is also the largest of the posterior gastropods. One of the encountered specimens, for example, weighed about 14 kg, and was almost a meter in length!
This marine inhabitant received his name for the common color and tentacle horns located on the head and similar to hare ears. The mollusk, it can be said, has almost no shells - it is thin, reduced and covered by a mantle from above.
At first glance, especially in human hands, the black sea hare is a large, shapeless, slippery creature of a resinous color. Generally speaking, pretty creepy-looking.
And aplies are famous for this particular type because they have long and successfully allowed neuropsychological scientists to study the functioning of the nervous system. The fact is that the nerve cells in this slug are only 20 thousand, and they are quite large - often about a millimeter in diameter. Their work can be observed with the naked eye. This makes these mollusks convenient model organisms for scientific research.