Hewitt's red rock hare
# Hewitt's red rock hare

The Hewitt's red rock hare (Pronolagus saundersiae) is a species of mammal in the family Leporidae. It had previously been classified as a subspecies of Pronolagus rupestris, but is now regarded as its own species due to differences in morphology and genetic differences in cytochrome b, and 12S rRNA.

## Taxonomic history

This species was named by John Hewitt (1880–1961), who was the director of the Albany Museum, South Africa. Hewitt originally described this taxon as a subspecies of Pronolagus crassicaudatus in his 1927 description. Its type locality was Grahamstown.

He described this taxon based and skulls from Albany district, collected by Enid Saunders and Frank Bowker; the species is named after Saunders.

It was later classified as a subspecies of Pronolagus rupestris by various zoologists, including Ellerman, Morrison-Scott and Hayman, as well as Hoffman and Smith for the third edition of Mammal Species of the World.

Works which list it as its own species include: the IUCN Red List, Mammals of Africa, and Jonathan Kingdon's field guide.

