Contents

Red rock hare

Pronolagus
Illustration of P. crassicaudatus from Geoffroy, 1832
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Lagomorpha
Family:	Leporidae
Genus:	Pronolagus Lyon, 1904[1][2]
Type species
Lepus crassicaudatus I. Geoffroy, 1832
Species
Pronolagus crassicaudatus Pronolagus randensis Pronolagus rupestris Pronolagus saundersiae

The red rock hares are the four species in the genus Pronolagus.^[3][4] They are African lagomorphs of the family Leporidae.

Taxonomic history[edit]

Species in this genus had previously been classified in the genus Lepus, as done by J. E. Gray,^[5] or in Oryctolagus, as done by Charles Immanuel Forsyth Major.^[6]

The genus Pronolagus was proposed by Marcus Ward Lyon, Jr. in 1904, based on a skeleton that had been labeled Lepus crassicaudatus I. Geoffroy, 1832.^[2] Lyon later acknowledged the work of Oldfield Thomas and Harold Schwann, which argued that particular specimen belonged to a species they named Pronolagus ruddi Thomas and Schwann 1905;^[7] he wrote that the type species "should stand as Pronolagus crassicaudatus Lyon (not Geoffroy) = Pronolagus ruddi Thomas and Schwann".^[8]

P. ruddi is no longer regarded as its own species, but rather a subspecies of P. crassicaudatus.^[9][1]

In the 1950s, John Ellerman and Terence Morrison-Scott classified Poelagus as a subgenus of Pronolagus.^[10][9] B. G. Lundholm regarded P. randensis as a synonym of P. crassicaudatus.^[11] Neither of these classifications received much support.^[12]

Previously proposed species in this genus include:

• P. melanurus (Rüppell, 1834)^[13] (Now a synonym of P. rupestris^[4])
• P. ruddi Thomas & Schwann, 1905^[7] (Now a synonym^[4] or subspecies^[3][1]ofP. crassicaudatus)
• †P. intermedius Jameson, 1909^[14]
• P. whitei Roberts, 1938^[15] (Now a synonym^[4] or subspecies^[3][1]ofP. randensis)
• P. caucinus Thomas, 1929^[16] (Now a synonym^[4] or subspecies^[3][1]ofP. randensis)
• P. barretti Roberts, 1949^[17] (Now a synonym of P. saundersiae^[4][3])

Extant species[edit]

This genus contains the following species:

Image	Common Name	Scientific name	Distribution
	Natal red rock hare	Pronolagus crassicaudatus I. Geoffroy, 1832	southeastern provinces of South Africa (Eastern Cape, Mpumalanga, and KwaZulu-Natal), eastern Lesotho, Swaziland (Highveld and Lumbobo), and southern Mozambique (Maputo Province).
	Jameson's red rock hare	Pronolagus randensis Jameson, 1907	Zimbabwe and Namibia
	Smith's red rock hare	Pronolagus rupestris A. Smith, 1834	Kenya (Rift Valley), Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, Rhodesia, South Africa (Northern Cape, Free State, and North West), Tanzania and Zambia.
	Hewitt's red rock hare	Pronolagus saundersiae Hewitt, 1927 (used to be included in Pronolagus rupestris[12][18]).	South Africa

Description[edit]

Some characteristics of animals in this genus include: the lack of an interparietal bone in adults, a mesopterygoid space which is narrower than the minimal length of the hard palate, short ears (63–106 millimetres (2+1⁄2–4+1⁄4 inches)), and the lack of a stripe along its jaw.^[19]

Fossils[edit]

A fossil skull of an animal in this genus was found in South Africa; Henry Lyster Jameson named the species Pronolagus intermedius^[a] as it was described as being intermediate between P. crassiacaudatus and P. ruddi.^[14]

Genetics[edit]

All species in this genus have 21 pairs of chromosomes (2n = 42).^[19][4] The karotype for P. rupestris has been published.^[20][21] The Pronolagus chromosomes have undergone four fusions and one fission from the Lagomorpha ancestral state (2n=48), which resembled the karotype of Lepus.^[22]

Notes[edit]

References[edit]

Further reading[edit]

• Allen, Glover M. (1939). "A Checklist of African Mammals". Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoölogy. 83: 280–282.
• Apps, Peter, ed. (2008). "Red Rock Rabbits". Smithers' Mammals of Southern Africa: A Field Guide (3rd ed.). Cape Town: Struik. pp. 119–122. ISBN 978-1-86872-550-2.
• Bronner, G. N.; Hoffmann, M.; Taylor, P. J.; Chimimba, C. T.; Best, P. B.; Matthee, C. A.; Robinson, T. J. (2003). "A revised systematic checklist of the extant mammals of the southern African subregion". Durban Museum Novitates. 28 (1): 61. hdl:10520/AJA0012723X_1504.
• Kingdon, Jonathan (2015). "Rock-Hares Pronolagus". The Kingdon Field Guide to African Mammals: Second Edition (2nd ed.). London: Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 304–306. ISBN 978-1-4729-2531-2.