FIRST CONTRIBUTE TO THE CHARACTERIZATION OF COAT IN LEPUS CORICANUS AND IN LEPUS EUROPAEUS BY COLORIMETRIC DETERMINATIONS

The trial was carried out on 12 sympatric adult females: 6 Italian hares (Lepus corsicanus) and 6 Brown hares (Lepus europaeus). Colour characteristics were studied by CIEL*a*b* method on the following anatomical regions: forehead, subocular patch, nape, withers, rump, hind leg, knee, and belly. Differences between means were tested by t test. The most striking differences were observed in a* and in C indexes. Italian hares resulted more reddish in knee (5.22 vs. 3.93, P≤0.001) and in hind leg (2.96 vs. 1.34, P≤0.01) and less reddish (P≤0.001) in the regions of subocular patch (3.35 vs. 5.34), nape (3.24 vs. 6.05) and withers (3.25 vs. 4.81) than Brown hare. Colour saturation was lower (nearer to the grey) in the regions forehead (4.78 vs. 6.41 P≤0.01), subocular patch (8.91 vs. 11.24, P≤0.05), nape (4.82 vs. 10.56, P≤0.001), withers (4.63 vs. 8.91, P≤0.001), and rump (5.81 vs. 8.30, P≤0.05) and higher in the regions hind leg (11.07 vs. 4.46, P≤0.001), knee (15.45 vs. 11.14, P≤0.001), and belly (3.30 vs. 2.15, P≤0.05) in Italian hare than in Brown hare. These differences are consistent with colour pattern of coat described in literature.