Japanese hare Japanese hare The Japanese hare ("Lepus brachyurus") is a species of hare native to Japan. Coenraad Jacob Temminck described the Japanese hare in 1845. The species name is derived from the Ancient Greek "brachys" "short" and "ouros" "tail". The four subspecies of this hare are: The Japanese hare is reddish-brown, with a body length that ranges from , and a body weight of . Its tail grows to lengths of . Its front legs can be from long and the back legs from long. The ears grow to be long, and the tail long. In areas of northern Japan, the
Rabbit folklore as the trickster archetype, as he uses his cunning to outwit his enemies. The rabbit as trickster is a part of American popular culture, as Br'er Rabbit (from African-American folktales and, later, Disney animation) and Bugs Bunny (the cartoon character from Warner Bros.), for example. Anthropomorphized rabbits have appeared in film and literature, in "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" (the White Rabbit and the March Hare characters), in "Watership Down" (including the film and television adaptations), in "Rabbit Hill" (by Robert Lawson), and in the "Peter Rabbit" stories (by Beatrix Potter). In the 1920s, "Oswald the Lucky Rabbit", was a