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Hainan Hare

Lepus hainanus

Status: Endangered. Once hunted for its pelt, the largest danger today for the Lepus hainanus is loss of habitat. Despite it being endangered, it is still being hunted.

A popular Chinese folktale is attached to the Mid-autumn Festival. Storytellers in the Tang dynasty (618-907 CE) would tell the tales of Chang O, and also the moon rabbit, whose shape is visible curled up in the shadows and light to gazers of the moon.

Chang O was married to a hero, an expert archer named Hou Yi. One day, disaster struck the land, as ten fiery suns rose into the sky instead of just one. The suns scorched the land, set fire to the fields, and boiled the seas. Hou Yi rose to the occasion as a hero of the people, and shot down nine of the ten suns. As a reward for this act, he was gifted an elixir of immortality. However, he did not want to leave his mortal wife behind, and so he did not drink the elixir. When a greedy apprentice of Hou Yi's found out about the elixir, he tried to take it from Chang O by force. In escaping from him, she drank the elixir and floated to the moon. Her companion on the moon is the Jade Rabbit who pounds on a mortar and pestle to create pills of immortality.

 

References:
Yang, Lihui; An, Deming (2005). Handbook of Chinese mythology. Santa Barbara.

SCHAFER, E. H. (1988). Ways of Looking at the Moon Palace. Asia Major, 1(1), 1-13. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41645416

Marie-Luise, Latsch. "Traditional Chinese Festivals". Graham Brash, 1985.