The diet of the mountain hare (Lepus timidus hibernicus) on coastal grassland

摘要: Across most of their range in Europe, mountain hares are usually restricted to upland areas with poor food quality. In these they generally feed on browse species such as heather or twigs and barks trees. On lowland better quality, the hare is replaced by brown (Lepus europaeus) which feeds predominantly greasses. This khas led some authors conclude that primarily adapted for browsing. absence Ireland, found a wide variety habitats including grassland. grassland, diet consists almost exclusively grasses, up 94% annual diet, more than has been reported similar habitat. Based this evidence, other work, it proposed grazing animal competitive exclusion may underlie much present distribution Europe.