Lepus europaeus Pallas, 1778

Robert S. Hoffmann, 1993, Order Lagomorpha, Mammal Species of the World (2 nd Edition), Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, pp. 807-827 : 817

Lepus europaeus Pallas, 1778 . Nova Spec. Quad. Glir. Ord., p. 30.

TYPE LOCALITY: Not stated; restricted by Trouessart (1910), to Poland (see discussion in Ognev, 1940:140, which further restricts it to SW Poland) .

DISTRIBUTION: Open woodland, steppe and subdesert: from S Sweden and Finland to Britain, throughout Europe (not Iberian Penin, south of Cantabria and the Ebro R, or south of Siena in Italy), to W Siberian lowlands; south to N Israel, N Syria, N Iraq, the Tigris-Euphrates valley and W Iran. SE border of range ( Iran) from S Caspian Sea south to Persian Gulf (54°E); see Angerman (1983:19). Introduced to Ireland, SE Canada-NE USA, S South America, Australia, New Zealand and several islands, including Barbados, Réunion, and the Falklands.

STATUS: Most populations secure ( Flux and Angermann, 1990).

SYNONYMS: alba Bechstein, 1801; aquilonius Blasius, 1842; argenteogrisea König-Warthausen, 1875; astaricus Baloutch, 1978; biarmicus Heptner, 1948; borealis Kuznetsov, 1944; campestris Bogdanov, 1871 ; campicola Gervais, 1859; caspicus Hemprich and Ehrenberg, 1832; caucasicus Ognev, 1929; cinereus Fitzinger, 1867; connori Robinson, 1918; coronatus Fitzinger, 1867; creticus Barrett-Hamilton, 1903; cyanotus Blanchard, 1957; cyprius Barrett-Hamilton, 1903; cyrensis Satunin, 1905; flavus Bechstein, 1801; ghigii de Beaux, 1927; hybridus Desmarest, 1822; hyemalis Tumac, 1850; judeae Gray, 1867; kalmykorum Ognev, 1929; karpathorum Hilzheimer, 1906; laskerewi (?) Khomenko, 1916; maculatus Fitzinger, 1867; médius Nilsson, 1820; meridiei Hilzheimer, 1906; meridionalis Gervais, 1859; niethammeri Wettstein, 1943; niger Bechstein, 1801; nigricans Fitzinger, 1867; occidentalis de Winton, 1898; parnassius Miller, 1903; ponticus Ognev, 1929; pyrenaicus Hilzheimer, 1906; rhodius Festa, 1914; rufus, Fitzinger, 1867; syriacus Hemprich and Ehrenberg, 1832; tesquorum Ognev and Worobiev, 1923; transsylvanicus Matschie, 1901; transsylvaticus Hilzheimer, 1906; tumac Tichomirov and Kortchagin, 1889.

COMMENTS: Subgenus Eulagos ( Gureev, 1964:205; Gromov and Baranova, 1981). This species was earlier placed in capensis by Petter (1961) based on what was interpreted as a cline in morphological characters (mainly size) from NE Africa eastward across the N Arabian peninsula and the Middle East, and northward through Israel to Turkey. Sympatry between large " europaeus " and small " capensis " (= tolai ) in Kazakhstan, without evidence of hybridization ( Sludskii et al., 1980) was interpreted as overlapping ends of a Rassenkreis. Angermann's (1983) reanalysis indicated a marked discontinuity between smaller capensis (incl. arabicus) and larger europaeus running from the E Mediterranean coast (C Israel) through Iran, and on this basis we separate europaeus from capensis and tolai . East of the border of the range of europaeus in Iran, tolai occurs, apparently in allo- or parapatry with europaeus . Insular populations in the E Mediterranean are assigned to this species ( Ellerman and Morrison-Scott, 1951).