Lepus coreanus Thomas, 1892

Jo, Yeong-Seok, Baccus, John T. & Koprowski, John L., 2018, Mammals of Korea: a review of their taxonomy, distribution and conservation status, Zootaxa 4522 (1), pp. 1-216 : 12-13

Lepus coreanus Thomas, 1892 — Korean Hare

Lepus sinensis coreanus Thomas, 1892 p.146 ; Type locality-Seoul; Ellerman & Morrison-Scott, 1951 p.442; Won, 1958 p.443; Won, 1967 p.159; Corbet, 1978 p.73; Yoon, 1992 p.62.

L. coreanus: Thomas, 1906 p.865 ; Jones & Johnson, 1965 p.362; Han, 1994 p.46; Won & Smith, 1999 p.28; Han, 2004b p.99.

L. sinensis: Ellerman & Morrison-Scott, 1951 p.441 ; Corbet, 1978 p.73.

L. mandschuricus: Won, 1968 p.145 (probably misspelling of mandshuricus ).

Range: The distribution of L. coreanus ranges throughout the Korean Peninsula ( Smith & Jo 2018b; Fig. 4 ). Although Korean hares inhabit coastal islands connected by bridges to the mainland, no record exists for the remote islands.

Remarks: Previously regarded as a subspecies of L. sinensis , but the two species are allopatric ( Jones & Johnson 1965). Lepus coreanus has an endemic status in Korea ( Ministry of Environment 2005). Although Wu et al. (2005) merged this species to L. timidus based on cytochrome b gene analyses, L. coreanus is clearly distinguished from L. timidus by analysis of both nuclear thyroglobulin (TG) gene and mitochondrial control region ( Koh & Jang 2010). Hoffmann and Smith (2005) failed to recognize a subspecies for L. coreanus in Korea.

Conservation status: The South Korean government removed Lepus coreanus as a game species in 2005 because of declining populations. Also, Ulsan and Gwangju Metropolitan governments made L. coreanus a provincially protected species.

Figures

FIGURE 4. Range map of Lepus coreanus in Korea.