South African springhare
Pedetes capensis
— Where the name comes from
Pedetes is “the leaper”, from the Greek pēdētḗs, from pēdáō, to leap. Capensis names the Cape. The common name is wrong in every part but the verb: it is no hare, but a rodent that worked out for itself the same shape as the kangaroo, with huge hind legs, a heavy tail and a bounding gait.
— Facts
- Group
- Mammals · Mammalia
- Order
- Rodents
- Habitat
- Dry savannah with sandy soil, overgrazed pasture
- Range
- Southern and East Africa
- Size
- 35–45 cm of body, tail 37–48 cm, 2.5–3.8 kg
- Diet
- Grasses, roots, bulbs, seeds
- Lifespan
- 14 years in captivity
— Characteristics
- 01
It leaps up to two metres and moves only on two legs.
- 02
It spends the day in deep burrows that it plugs from inside with earth.
- 03
The female bears a single, well-developed young at a time.
— What sets it apart
In 2021 it was found to be biofluorescent: under ultraviolet light the fur glows pink and orange in irregular patches, different from one individual to the next. It is the first time the phenomenon has been documented in an Old World placental mammal, after the American flying squirrels and opossums, and nobody knows why it exists. The asymmetric blotching suggests a chemical by-product of the fur rather than a signal, but the question is open.
