A hare endemic to Japan, including Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu. It uses forest edges and other areas with grasses and shrubs.
Its summer coat is brown. Northern populations, including those in northern Honshu, and animals on Sado Island turn white in winter.
In northeastern Japan, researchers studied Japanese hares during heavy-snow winters. Camera traps covered 150 hectares in January–March of 2021 and 2022, while footprint surveys covered 400 hectares in January–March of 2022 and 2023. Camera detections were positively associated with canopy openness, slope, and marten detections, but not with fox detections.
Daytime resting sites were found beneath closed canopies and where horizontal visibility was low. The authors proposed that feeding opportunities may shape nighttime habitat use, while avoiding aerial and ground predators may shape daytime resting sites.
Ministry of the Environment, Japan Red List 2020 (Mammals) · Near Threatened (NT) · Sado Island, Japan (Sado hare subspecies)
Japan's 2020 Ministry of the Environment Red List classifies the Sado hare (Lepus brachyurus lyoni), a subspecies on Sado Island, as Near Threatened (NT).