from a hare in appearance and taste" and which "lives for the most part under the ground". This animal may have been the Sardinian pika, because Corsica at that time was not characterized by the occurrence of any species of hare. The most recent zooarchaeological remains of pikas in Corsica were dated to either late pre-Roman or Roman times, between 348 BCE and 283 CE. Survival of the Sardinian pika up into modern history has been hypothesised from the description of unknown mammals by later Sardinian authors; however, this interpretation remains dubious owing to anatomical discrepancies. The Medieval Italian poet Fazio Degli Uberti mentioned "a small animal" in Sardinia which was very timid and was called "Solifughi", which means "hiding from the sun", in his 1360 poem Dittamondo ('Song of the World'). In 1774, Francesco Cetti wrote that the island of Tavolara off the coast of Sardinia had "giant rats whose burrows are so abundant that one might think the surface of the soil had been recently turned over by pigs", which has often been taken as a reference to the Sardinian pika. However, this was questioned by Barbara Wilkens in a 2000 publication, who suggested that it was more likely that the animals mentioned by Cetti were brown rats. References Pikas Extinct mammals of Europe Mammal extinctions since 1500 Fauna of Sardinia Fauna of Corsica Mammals described in 1829