Mountain hare lives at elevations from 700 to 3800 m, depending on biographic region and season. The mountain hare is a large species, though it is slightly smaller than the European hare. It grows to a length of , with a tail of , and a mass of , females being slightly heavier than males. In summer, for all populations of mountain hares, the coat is various shades of brown. In preparation for winter most populations moult into a white (or largely white) pelage. The tail remains completely white all year round, distinguishing the mountain hare from the European hare ("Lepus europaeus"),
European rabbit intended meaning. Like the Phoenicians, neither the later Greek nor Roman colonizers had a specific name for the rabbit, because the species is not native to Greece and Italy (though it is present there nowadays). They commonly called it "small hare" and "small digging hare", in contrast to the European hare, which is larger and doesn't make burrows. Catullus used the name "cuniculus" (a latinization of the Iberian word "kiniklos" and the etymological origin of the Castilian name "conejo", Portuguese "coelho" and Catalan "conill", and the old English name, "coney"), and referenced its abundance in Celtiberia by calling this region