A female European hare (right) boxes with a male in Wales. PHOTOGRAPH BY ANDY ROUSE, 2020VISION/NATURE PICTURE LIBRARY/CORBIS. Via National Geographic.

Thank you to Liz Langley from National Geographic for highlighting differences that we have always been curious about but never thought about looking into until they were laid out so clearly in a single place. And with cute photos and a couple puns to boot. The article below comes from Nat Geo’s “Weird Animal Question of the Week,” which we will be sure to visit in the future.

Hares and rabbits are in the same family, Leporidae, but they’re “different species, like sheep and goats are different species,” Steven Lukefahr, a geneticist at Texas A&M University in Kingsville, said via email.

Hares are also larger, have longer ears, and are less social than rabbits. The “most profound difference” is seen in baby hares versus baby bunnies, said Philip Stott, a wildlife ecologist at the University of Adelaide in Australia. (See National Geographic’s pictures of baby animals.)

First off, a hare’s pregnancy lasts 42 days, compared with rabbits’ 30-31 days with a bun(ny) in the oven.

Newborn hares, called leverets, are fully developed at birth—furred with open eyes—while newborn rabbits, called kittens or kits, are born undeveloped, with closed eyes, no fur, and an inability to regulate their own temperature, Stott said.

A newborn Nuttall’s cottontail (Sylvilagus nuttallii) rests in Alberta, Canada. PHOTOGRAPH BY ALL CANADA PHOTOS, ALAMY. Via National Geographic.

Their nests are also worlds apart—”hares live completely aboveground, lacking the normal burrow or warren system of rabbits,” said Michael Sheriff, an ecologist at Penn State in University Park, Pennsylvania. (Related: “Ask Your Weird Animal Questions: Animal Nests Explained.”)

That’s why, as a hare that burrows, “Bugs Bunny is a fraud,” Stott joked.

There is an exception to the burrowing-bunny rule—the cottontail, a type of American rabbit that does not burrow.

Read the rest of the article describing the differences between hares and rabbits here.