LEPUS NIGRICOLLIS, the INDIAN HARE 26.1 the Living Animal 26.1
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CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX LEPUS NIGRICOLLIS, THE INDIAN HARE 26.1 The Living Animal 26.1.1 Zoology The Indian hare is a large leporid with a head and body length of 40–60 cm, long ears, large, well-furred hind feet and a rather long tail of 10 cm (fi g. 364). It is subdivided into three subspecies, the black- naped hare of peninsular India roughly south of Madhya Pradesh, the rufous-tailed hare of India roughly north of Madhya Pradesh, and the desert hare of the arid zones of north-western India and Pakistan. In its typical form, the Indian hare bears a dark brown or black patch on the back of its neck, hence the name black-naped hare for this subspecies. The dark patch can be grey and thus hardly visible in the rufous-tailed hare. The patch is not visibly present in the desert hare. Apart from the colour pattern, the subspecies look fairly the same. The Indian hare is mainly found in open grassy areas, cultivated plains, semi-arid and arid plains and hills throughout the entire sub- continent, including Sri Lanka. Indian hares are also found in the Nilgiris and other South Indian hill ranges (black-naped hare) and in the Himalayas up to 2.5 km (rufous-tailed hare). Many Indian hares live near villages and cultivation. During the dry season when grass in the wild is scanty, they come to roadsides or even enter compounds to feed on the grass growing there. Indian hares can be really numer- ous where the environment is suitable. The ideal environment consists of bush and jungle alternating with cultivated plains; hares avoid the dense forest. 26.1.2 Related Species The other hare species on the subcontinent is the hispid hare, also known as bristly rabbit or Assam rabbit (Caprolagus hispidus). The his- pid hare is as large as the Indian hare, but has a hardly visible tail (2.5 cm), very short and broad ears, short hind legs, and a peculiar coarse bristly fur. 294 LEPUS NIGRICOLLIS It is found only in the riverine grass jungles along the southern foothills of the Himalayas roughly from Uttar Pradesh through Nepal, Sikkim, West Bengal, Bhutan to north-western Assam and north-eastern Bangladesh, but it is critically endangered now, due to habitat destruc- tion, mainly by deliberate burning of thatch land but also due to hunting by domestic village dogs.1 The last record was thought to be in 1951 from Kheri at the Uttar Pradesh-Nepalese border, but since 1956 it has been rediscovered in scattered parts of its range.2 At present, however, it’s number appears to have been dropped again to a mere hundred individuals, which is too low to sustain a viable population.3 The common rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) does not naturally occur in India; all rabbits in the wild are feral domestic rabbits, originating from the rabbits that were brought by the British. 26.1.3 Role of Hares in Society The hare is as much a hunted and trapped animal in South Asia as it is in the rest of the world. It is mainly hunted for its meat, and much less for its pelt. For the Sahariya tribals of Rajasthan, it is the number one animal for hunting. Remains of the Indian hare were recovered from the mature Harappan site of Lothal at the Gulf of Cambay, Gujarat (c. 2,300–1,750 B.C.E.),4 indicating that four thousand years ago it was hunted as well. Hares were never domesticated. The Romans kept them captive in enclosures, but did not tame them nor controlled their breed- ing. There is no evidence of a similar practice from South Asia. In Indian literature, hares are presented as intelligent animals. For example, there is a tale about how a hare outwits a lion in the Parrot Book,5 which is told as follows, 1 D. Bell, W. Oliver and R. Ghose, “The hispid hare,” in Rabbits, hares, and pikas: status survey and conservation action plan, ed. J. Chapman and J. Flux (Gland, Switzerland: IUCN, 1990), 128–136. 2 D. Bell, “A study of the hispid hare Caprolagus hispidus in Royal Suklaphanta Wildlife Reserve, western Nepal: a summary report,” Dodo 23 (1986), 24–31. 3 W. Oliver, “The doubtful future of the pigmy hog and the hispid hare,” Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society 75 (1978), 341–372. 4 Nath, op. cit. (1968), 1–63; Chitalwala and Thomas, op. cit. (1977–8), 14 5 Shukhasaptati, 28th story in Das Papageienbuch, ed. W. Morgenroth (München: Winkler-Verlag, 1969), 160–162. The story is also part of Book 1 of the Panchatantra collection..