Lepus (Eulagos) europaeus Pallas 1778

Wilson, Don E. & Reeder, DeeAnn, 2005, Order Lagomorpha, Mammal Species of the World: a Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3 rd Edition), Volume 1, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 185-211 : 198

Lepus (Eulagos) europaeus Pallas 1778

Lepus (Eulagos) europaeus Pallas 1778 , Nova Spec. Quad. Glir. Ord.: 30.

Type Locality: Not stated; restricted by Trouessart (1910), to Poland (see discussion in Ognev, 1940:140, who further restricted it to SW Poland).

Vernacular Names: European Hare.

Subspecies: :

Subspecies Lepus (Eulagos) europaeus subsp. europaeus Pallas 1778

Subspecies Lepus (Eulagos) europaeus subsp. caspicus Hemprich and Erhenberg 1832

Subspecies Lepus (Eulagos) europaeus subsp. connori Robinson 1918

Subspecies Lepus (Eulagos) europaeus subsp. creticus Barrett-Hamilton 1903

Subspecies Lepus (Eulagos) europaeus subsp. cyprius Barrett-Hamilton 1903

Subspecies Lepus (Eulagos) europaeus subsp. cyrensis Satunin 1905

Subspecies Lepus (Eulagos) europaeus subsp. hybridus Desmarest 1822

Subspecies Lepus (Eulagos) europaeus subsp. judeae Gray 1867

Subspecies Lepus (Eulagos) europaeus subsp. karpathorum Hilzheimer 1906

Subspecies Lepus (Eulagos) europaeus subsp. medius Nilsson 1820

Subspecies Lepus (Eulagos) europaeus subsp. occidentalis de Winton 1898

Subspecies Lepus (Eulagos) europaeus subsp. parnassius Miller 1903

Subspecies Lepus (Eulagos) europaeus subsp. ponticus Ognev 1929

Subspecies Lepus (Eulagos) europaeus subsp. rhodius Festa 1914

Subspecies Lepus (Eulagos) europaeus subsp. syriacus Hemprich and Ehrenberg 1832

Subspecies Lepus (Eulagos) europaeus subsp. transsylvanicus Matschie 1901

Distribution: Open woodland, steppe and sub-desert: from S Sweden and Finland to Britain, throughout Europe (not Iberian Penin. south of Cantabria and the Ebro River, 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 EE); 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.

Conservation: IUCN – Lower Risk (lc); however, this once common species is now declining across Europe and a reevaluation of its status is likely to place it in one of the IUCN threatened categories ( Schneider, 1997).

Discussion: Subgenus Eulagus ( Averianov, 1998; Gromov and Baranova, 1981; Gureev, 1964). This species was earlier placed in capensis by Petter (1961 a) 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) re-analysis 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 were assigned to this species ( Ellerman and Morrison-Scott, 1951), but need to be reviewed. See also comments under tolai and tibetanus .