Pentalagus furnessi

– Endangered

Taxonomy

Kingdom:

ANIMALIA

Phylum:

CHORDATA

Class:

MAMMALIA

Order:

LAGOMORPHA

Family:

LEPORIDAE

Scientific Name:

Pentalagus furnessi

Species Authority:

(Stone, 1900)

Common Name/s:

English

—

AMAMI RABBIT, RYUKYU RABBIT

Assessment Information

Red List Category & Criteria:

EN A2b, B1+2bce, C1 ver 2.3 (1994)

Year Assessed:

1996

Annotations:

Needs updating

Assessor/s:

Lagomorph Specialist Group

History:

1965	-	"Less rare but believed to be threatened-requires watching" (Scott 1965)
1986	-	Endangered (IUCN Conservation Monitoring Centre 1986)
1988	-	Endangered (IUCN Conservation Monitoring Centre 1988)
1990	-	Endangered (IUCN 1990)
1994	-	Endangered (Groombridge 1994)

Geographic Range

Range Description:	This species is only found on Amami Oshima and Tokunoshima, two islands forming part of the Ryukyu Archipelago (areas 820 and 248 km² respectively).
Countries:	Native: Japan

Habitat and Ecology

Habitat and Ecology:	Signs of rabbits are found in forests of all successional stages, but not in cultivated or residential areas. Recent observations indicate that rabbits are also found in cut-over areas and forest edges covered by Japanese pampas grass Miscanthus sinensis (Suzuki 1985, Sugimura 1987). In general Amami rabbits are nocturnal.
System:	Terrestrial

Threats

Threats:

Extensive logging operations on the two islands have resulted in the area of old forests being reduced to less than 5% of all forests in 1980 (Sugimura 1987). Predation also occurs from feral dogs and cats.

List of Threats:

1.3.3	Habitat Loss/Degradation - Extraction - Wood (ongoing)
2.2	Invasive alien species (directly affecting the species) - Predators (ongoing)

Bibliography

Bibliography:

Chapman, J.A. and Flux, J.E.C. (compilers and editors) 1990. Rabbits, Hares, and Pikas: a Status Survey and Action Plan. IUCN/SSC Lagomorph Specialist Group. IUCN/SSC, Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge, UK.

Groombridge, B. (ed.) 1994. 1994 IUCN Red List of Threatened Animals. IUCN, Gland, Switzerland.

IUCN Conservation Monitoring Centre. 1986. 1986 IUCN Red List of Threatened Animals. IUCN, Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge, UK.

IUCN Conservation Monitoring Centre. 1988. 1988 IUCN Red List of Threatened Animals. IUCN, Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge, UK.

IUCN. 1990. 1990 IUCN Red List of Threatened Animals. IUCN, Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge, UK.

Lagomorph Specialist Group. For more information, see the Specialist Group website

Mace, G.M. and Balmford, A. 2000. Patterns and processes in contemporary mammalian extinction. In: A. Entwhistle and N. Dunstone (eds) Priorities for the Conservation of Mammalian Diversity. Has the Panda had its day?, pp. 27-52. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Scott, P. (ed.) 1965. Section XIII. Preliminary List of Rare Mammals and Birds. In: The Launching of a New Ark, pp. 15–207. First Report of the President and Trustees of the World Wildlife Fund. An International Foundation for saving the world's wildlife and wild places 1961–1964. Collins, London.

Sugimura, K. 1987. Forestry and wildlife conservation on Amami Oshima, Japan: an integrated study of man and wildlife. Ph.D dissertation, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Hawaii.

Suzuki, H. 1985. An island on which the Amami rabbit inhabits. Shinjuku Shobou, Tokyo.

Citation:	Lagomorph Specialist Group 1996. Pentalagus furnessi. In: IUCN 2007. 2007 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. <www.iucnredlist.org>. Downloaded on 07 September 2008.
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