- Kathleen Scavone
- Posted On
The Living Landscape: The rascally black-tailed jackrabbit
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Lake County is renowned for its wild landscape with an abundance of flora and fauna.
Our lands are home to a wide variety of fauna, including bear, deer, elk, mountain lion, bobcat and smaller creatures like grey squirrel, ground squirrel and the ever-present jackrabbit.
The jackrabbit that makes its home here is the black-tailed jackrabbit.
That being said, a jackrabbit is actually a hare, which is not a rabbit, but a relative within the order Lagomorpha.
An outstanding difference between a hare and a rabbit is that a hare will freeze in place when threatened, while a rabbit will make a bee-line to its burrow to escape a predator.
The still-life pose that the hare assumes lasts until its attacker gets too close for comfort. Then, the hare will make use of its gangly-looking long legs which are truly lithe and nimble, and it will swerve and outmaneuver – if it's lucky – its attacker.
These remarkable animals often hop for 5 to 10 feet, rather than walk. During its fourth or fifth jump, it often hops higher to observe its surroundings.
If a predator, such as a fox, coyote, raptor or bobcat is on the prowl the jackrabbit can reach a speed of up to 35 miles per hour!
When threatened, it shows off its white, furry underside and sometimes thumps its hind feet, possibly as a warning to other jackrabbits that danger is nearby.
Both the jackrabbit female, known as a jill, along with the male, known as a jack, have long, satellite antennae-like ears – the better to hear you with!
Jackrabbits have burnished beige fur, speckled with black, and black-edged ears. Jackrabbits grow to reach a length of approximately 2 feet, and weigh in at 3 to 6 pounds.
These wily critters are not the largest of the North American hares, since the antelope jackrabbit, along with the white-tailed jackrabbit hold the distinction of being larger animals.
Breeding season, when they give chase and participate in frenzied skirmishes, is January to August.
It is common for the mammals to give birth to a litter of four young, which are born complete with fur and eyes wide open.
Becoming more active in late afternoon, the black-tailed jackrabbit usually rests, hidden in vegetation during the daylight hours.
Their diet consists mainly of grasses and shrubs. It is in the consumption of all of this plant matter that it obtains enough water to survive, requiring an equivalent water-to-body weight ratio to thrive.
Kathleen Scavone, M.A., is a retired educator, potter, writer and author of “Anderson Marsh State Historic Park: A Walking History, Prehistory, Flora, and Fauna Tour of a California State Park” and “Native Americans of Lake County.” She also formerly wrote for NASA and JPL as one of their “Solar System Ambassadors.” She was selected “Lake County Teacher of the Year, 1998-99” by the Lake County Office of Education, and chosen as one of 10 state finalists the same year by the California Department of Education.