South African springhare

Spring Hare ( Pedetes capensis )

The Spring Hare ( Pedetes capensis ) is a rodent of South and East African semi-desert and dry savannah. Outwardly, he has indeed resemble a hare, but in contrast to this a real rodent. Unlike the name suggests the Spring bunny is not directly related with the hare.

Features

More than a rabbit similar to the Springhare a very small edition of a kangaroo. He has long, powerful hind legs and short front legs. After kangaroo kind he jumps upright on its hind legs without touching with the front legs to the floor. He can carry sentences of two to three meters in length.

The Spring Bunny has a head-body length of 40 centimeters, added an approximately equally long, bushy tail. The weight of the animal is three to four kilograms. Upper hand, the coat is added depending on the region, colored sand, or red-brown, the underside is whitish. The rear half of the tail is black.

The animal's head is short and sits on a muscular neck. The greatly enlarged ears can reach a length of eight inches. The eyes are large and black. Spring hares carry four claws on the front legs and five on the hind legs. The front claws are sharp and curved and adapted for digging. The claws of the hind legs are duller and resemble small hooves.

Way of life

In arid habitats of Springhare expanding its programs. A pair commonly inhabited the tunnels, which are about 20 centimeters in diameter. The entire gear system of a spring hares pair has an average length of 42 meters and is about 80 centimeters below the surface. There are 9.3 inputs per building, which lie in the protection of trees or shrubs where possible on average.

On the day sleep spring hares in their burrows, and at night they are active. In the vicinity of their construction they then look for grasses, herbs and roots. Especially tubers and roots they dig with preference from the earth. In times of emergency spring hares also eat insects. If possible, they remain always in the vicinity of an input, so that they can escape into the building at the appearance of an enemy with a few sentences. Usually a Springhare remains at a distance of 25 to 250 meters from its construction. When a drought food can be scarce, but it can take up to 40 kilometers place to find fertile regions in one night.

Kittens can be born at any time of year. Usually a single young is born, twin births there in less than one percent of all cases. A female can throw four times per year. The young are suckled for 50 days and then leave for the first time the construction. The life span in the wild is rarely more than seven years. In captivity, however, spring hares were up to 19 years old.

System

The position of the spring hares in the system of rodents has long been a mystery. They were initially considered to be particularly large and divergent gerbils. Later they made zoologists in varying lineages, including in the vicinity of the porcupines. Today we know, thanks to molecular genetic analyzes have shown that the spring hares are the sister group of the spine tail Squirrel, though outwardly no similarity. Both are united in a common taxon thorn tail squirrel relatives ( Anomaluromorpha ), whose relations with other rodents remain largely enigmatic.

The fact that all belong to a kind of spring hares, is largely undisputed. In older literature, you sometimes find single subspecies in the status of independent species.

Fossil history

The Spring Hare is the last representative of a once much larger species kinship circle. The earliest fossils date from the Miocene and can be assigned to the extinct genera Parapedetes, Megapedetes and Diatomys. Since the Pliocene is only the genus Pedetes known. Fossils of spring hares have been discovered across Africa as well as parts of Asia (Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey).

People and spring hares

Occasionally penetrate springhares ago on foraging in cornfields. However, they do not occur to any significant extent as pests. Although the distribution is very fragmented, populations are stable. The species is no longer considered endangered and was removed from the IUCN Red List 2004.