Red rock hare

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

Pronolagus
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Lagomorpha
Family: Leporidae
Genus: Pronolagus
Lyon, 1904[1][2]
Type species
Lepus crassicaudatus
Species
  • Pronolagus crassicaudatus
  • Pronolagus randensis
  • Pronolagus rupestris
  • Pronolagus saundersiae

This genus contains the following species:

Taxonomic history

Species in this genus had previously been classified in the genus Lepus, as done by J. E. Gray,[7] or in Oryctolagus, as done by Charles Immanuel Forsyth Major.[8]

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;[9] he wrote that the type species "should stand as Pronolagus crassicaudatus Lyon (not Geoffroy) = Pronolagus ruddi Thomas and Schwann".[10]

P. ruddi is no longer regarded as its own species, but rather a subspecies of P. crassicaudatus.[11][1]

In the 1950s, John Ellerman and Terence Morrison-Scott classified Poelagus as a subgenus of Pronolagus.[12][11] B. G. Lundholm regarded P. randensis as a synonym of P. crassicaudatus.[13] Neither of these classifications received much support.[5]

Previously proposed species in this genus include:

  • P. melanurus (Rüppell, 1834)[14] (Now a synonym of P. rupestris[4])
  • P. ruddi Thomas & Schwann, 1905[9] (Now a synonym[4] or subspecies[3][1] of P. crassicaudatus)
  • †P. intermedius Jameson, 1909[15]
  • P. whitei Roberts, 1938[16] (Now a synonym[4] or subspecies[3][1] of P. randensis)
  • P. caucinus Thomas, 1929[17] (Now a synonym[4] or subspecies[3][1] of P. randensis)
  • P. barretti Roberts, 1949[18] (Now a synonym of P. saundersiae[4][3])

Description

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

A fossil skull of an animal in this genus was found in South Africa; Henry Lyster Jameson named the species Pronolagus intermedius[lower-alpha 1] as it was described as being intermediate between P. crassiacaudatus and P. ruddi.[15]

Genetics

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
  1. Jameson's paper spelled the name of the new species as Ronolagus intermedius, but elsewhere described it as being in the genus Pronolagus.
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References
  1. Hoffman, R.S.; Smith, A.T. (2005). "Genus Pronolagus". In Wilson, D.E.; Reeder, D.M (eds.). Mammal Species of the World: A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3rd ed.). Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 206–207. ISBN 978-0-8018-8221-0. OCLC 62265494.
  2. Lyon, Jr., Marcus Ward (1903) [1904]. "Classification of the Hares and their Allies". Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections. 45 (1456): 416–420.
  3. Collins, K. (2005). "Order Lagomorpha". In Skinner, John D.; Chimimba, Christian T. (eds.). The Mammals of the Southern African Subregion (3rd ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 73. doi:10.1017/CBO9781107340992.013.
  4. Happold, D. C. D. (2013). "Genus Pronolagus Hewitt's Red Rock-hare". In Happold, David C. D. (ed.). Rodents, Hares and Rabbits. Mammals of Africa. 3. London: Bloomsbury. pp. 712–717. ISBN 978-1-4081-8992-4.
  5. Meester, J. A. J.; Rautenbach, I. L.; Dippenaar, N. J.; Baker, C. M. (1986). "Order Lagomorpha". Classification of Southern African Mammals. Transvaal Museum Monographs. 5. Transvaal Museum. pp. 298–307. hdl:10520/AJA090799001_112. ISBN 0907990061.
  6. Duthie, A. G.; Robinson, T. J. (1990). "The African Rabbits". In Chapman, Joseph A.; Flux, John E. C. (eds.). Rabbits, Hares, and Pikas: Status Survey and Conservation Action Plan. Gland, Switzerland: International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. pp. 121–127. ISBN 2-8317-0019-1.
  7. Gray, J. E. (1867). "Notes on the Skulls of Hares (Leporidæ) and Picas (Lagomyidæ) in the British Museum". Annals and Magazine of Natural History. 3rd ser. 20 (117): 223. doi:10.1080/00222936708694118.
  8. Forsyth Major, C. I. (1899). "On Fossil and Recent Lagomorpha". Transactions of the Linnean Society of London. 2nd Series: Zoology. 7 (9): 514. doi:10.1111/j.1096-3642.1899.tb002021.x.
  9. Thomas, Oldfield; Schwann, Harold (1905). "The Rudd Exploration of South Africa.——III. List of the Mammals obtained by Mr. Grant in Zululand". Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London (1): 272–275.
  10. Lyon, Jr., Marcus W. (1906). "Type of the Genus Pronolagus". Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. 19: 95.
  11. Ellerman, J. R.; Morrison-Scott, T. C. S.; Hayman, R. W. (1953). "Lagomorpha — Leporidae". Southern African Mammals 1758 to 1951: A Reclassification. London: Tonbridge. pp. 219–222.
  12. Ellerman, J. R.; Morrison-Scott, T. C. S. (1951). "Family Leporidae". Checklist of Palaearctic and Indian Mammals 1758 to 1946. London. pp. 420, 424–425.
  13. Lundholm, B. G. (1954). "Descriptions of New Mammals". Annals of the Transvaal Museum. 22 (3): 293–294. hdl:10520/AJA00411752_408.
  14. Rüppell, Eduard (1845). "Beschreibung mehrerer neuer Säugethiere, in der zoologischen Sammlung der Senckenbergischen naturforschenden Gesellschaft befindlich". Musem Senckenbergianum: Abhandlungen aus dem Gebiete der beschreibenden Naturgeschichte. 3: 137.
  15. Jameson, Lyster (1909). "On a Sub-fossil Hare from a Cave Deposit at Godwan River". Annals of the Transvaal Museum. 1 (3): 195–196.
  16. Roberts, Austin (1938). "Descriptions of new forms of mammals". Annals of the Transvaal Museum. 19 (2): 244. hdl:10520/AJA00411752_502.
  17. Thomas, Oldfield (1929). "On Mammals from the Kaoko-Veld, South-West Africa, obtained during Captain Shortridge's fifth Percy Sladen and Kaffrarian Museum Expedition". Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London. 99 (2): 109–110. doi:10.1111/j.1469-7998.1929.tb07691.x.
  18. Roberts, Austen (1949). "A New Pronolagus from Natal". Annals of the Transvaal Museum. 21 (1): 179–180. hdl:10520/AJA00411752_472.
  19. Robinson, T.J. (1982). "Key to the South African Leporidae (Mammalia: Lagomorpha)". South African Journal of Zoology. 17 (4): 220–222. doi:10.1080/02541858.1982.11447806.
  20. Robinson, T. J. (1980). "Comparative chromosome studies in the family Leporidae (Lagomorpha, Mammalia)". Cytogenetics and Cell Genetics. 28 (1–2): 64–70. doi:10.1159/000131513.
  21. Robinson, Terence J. (2006). "Order Lagomorpha". In O'Brien, Stephen J.; Menninger, Joan C.; Nash, William G. (eds.). Atlas of Mammalian Chromosomes. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Liss. pp. 342–355. doi:10.1002/0471779059. ISBN 9780471779056.
  22. Robinson, T. J.; Yang, F.; Harrison, W. R. (2002). "Chromosome painting refines the history of genome evolution in hares and rabbits (order Lagomorpha)". Cytogenetic and Genome Research. 96: 223–227. doi:10.1159/000063034. PMID 12438803.

Further reading
  • 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.
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