Manchurian hare

The Manchurian hare, Lepus mandshuricus, is a hare of northeastern China and eastern Russia, ranging east from the Ussuri River region through Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning and Inner Mongolia and possibly into northern North Korea. Unlike most hares, it lives in forests, preferring mixed woodland to coniferous forest, and it uses closed shelters to rest and escape predators. It is nocturnal with some activity at dawn, and its diet includes shrubs, herbs and fallen fruits as well as twigs and bark from willow, birch, elm, maple, apple and linden trees. It was first described by Gustav Radde in 1861 and was once considered a subspecies of the Japanese hare. Deforestation threatens it and brings competition from the Tolai hare, but it occurs across several protected areas and the IUCN rates it as least concern.