March Madness: Mad March Hares
Have you ever heard of the expression “mad as a March hare”? And if you haven’t, why not? Well, trust me — there’s an expression that goes “mad as a March hare”. I heard it used a lot in England (although I’m not sure if it was referring to me.) No month of looking at madness would be complete without looking at March hares and why they have such a reputation for being completely bonkers.
Growing up in America, I’d assumed that hares were just large rabbits. Nope. There are quite a few differences.
Hares have longer legs, longer ears and nastier attitudes. Although rabbits have been successfully domesticated, hares are still wild and free. Rabbit babies are born naked and helpless, while hares hit the ground running (so to speak). There are various species of hares, including the jackrabbit of America, the European Hare (which look like small deer with big ears) that I got to know in England and the Arctic Hare in — well, in the Arctic.
In Europe, hare mating season is in full swing in March (although when I was in England, they’d be at it by February). One second, a group of hares are quietly grazing on a patch of open grass and then next they’re on their hind legs boxing each other and then they’d mate. This is a silent film of Arctic hares doing the same behavior, posted by Canada Nature Museum:
The following is another short film about Arctic hares. That curly-cue thing you will see is the hare’s penis. Whoa!
March 17th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
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