Endangered
Hainan hare
Lepus hainanus
The Hainan hare is a hare endemic to Hainan Island, China.
Appearance
The upper part of the tail is black, while the under parts are white. It has a more colorful coat than most other hares: its back is brownish black and white, its belly is white, the fur on the flank is a mixture of brownish yellow and brownish white, and its limbs are dark brown.
The Hainan hare is small. Its body length is less than 40 centimetres (16 in) and weighs only 1.5 kilograms (3.3 lb).
The species was first described by Robert Swinhoe in 1870.
Range and habitat
The Hainan hare is found in the dry grassland of western Hainan Island. It does not live in mountains or agricultural land. Nevertheless, a specimen is found in the eastern city of Wenchang in 2026.
The Hainan hare is a hare endemic to Hainan Island, China.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Habits
The Hainan hare is a solitary animal and active at night or dusk.
In crisis
It is also threatened by loss of habitat. Most of the habitat and animals on Hainan are threatened by similar factors, like the Hainan black crested gibbon, one of the world's rarest primates. There is no control for overhunting of this hare and habitat destruction, even though it is considered endangered.
Little is known on specific populations.
Hainan hare is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Hainan hare, Wikidata item Q1355743. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
