Color-changing fur helps some animals stay safe in Minnesota

While winter fans have been eager for snow this winter, Minnesota has several furry creatures whose very survival depends on a white landscape. Their superpower — turning white to blend in with winter — becomes a liability during odd, almost snowless winters like last one.

White-tailed jackrabbits, snowshoe hares and weasels go through a leucistic phase in fall when their brown fur, which blends into woods and thickets, loses its pigment. Watch the edge of thickets and woods at dawn or dusk to catch sight of these mostly nocturnal mammals that rock a winter white.

Snowshoe hare

With “snow” in the name, these hares are among the best-known color-changing mammals. Their summer-brown fur blends in with shadowy woods and brush until late fall. Their famously big back feet help them stay atop the snow — much like snowshoes — and they can rocket to 30 mph or jump up to 12 feet high, according to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.

Snowshoe hares thrive in northern Minnesota’s boreal forest and are considered a keystone species, vital to the survival of other animals including coyotes, wolf, fox, and raptors.

White-tailed jackrabbit

This jackrabbit ranks as largest member of the rabbit and hare family, weighing up to 10 pounds and known for a long-legged bounding gait similar to a kangaroo. Despite its name, jackrabbits are hares, which have furred babies born with their eyes open, ready to hop. Rabbits are born blind, hairless and helpless.

Jackrabbits have litters as soon as early April and can be found throughout western Minnesota and most of its southern counties.

Lisa Meyers McClintick of St. Cloud has freelanced for the Minnesota Star Tribune since 2001 and volunteers as a Minnesota Master Naturalist.