Hares, rabbits and pikas

About

The lagomorphs are the members of the taxonomic order Lagomorpha, of which there are two families, the Leporidae (hares and rabbits), and the Ochotonidae (pikas). The name of the order is derived from the Greek lagos (λαγος, "hare") and morphē (μορφή, "form").

Though these mammals can resemble rodents (order Rodentia), and were classified as a superfamily in that order until the early twentieth century, they have since been considered a separate order. For a time it was common to consider the lagomorphs only distant relatives of the rodents, to whom they merely bore a superficial resemblance.

The earliest fossil lagomorphs, such as Eurymylus, come from eastern Asia, and date to the late Paleocene or early Eocene. The leporids first appear in the late Eocene, and rapidly spread throughout the northern hemisphere; they show a trend towards increasingly long hind limbs as the modern leaping gait developed. The pikas appear somewhat later, in the Oligocene of eastern Asia.

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