Cottontail Rabbit
Related Category: Vertebrate Zoology
animal of the order Lagomorpha, which includes the hares and rabbits, except for the domestic, or European, rabbit, which is in a separate species.
Cottontail Rabbit Range
Fast Facts
Type: Mammal Diet: Herbivore Average life span in the wild: Less than 3 years Size: 15.5 to 18.75 in (39.5 to 47.7 cm) Weight: 28 to 54 oz (800 to 1533 g) Size relative to a tea cup: ...
COTTONTAIL RABBIT
Photo Credit: Kathy Hicks
SCIENTIFIC NAME: Sylviagus floridanus ...
Desert Cottontail (Sylvilagus audubonii)
Description This rabbit is a medium-sized cottontail. It is a buff-brown color lined with black above and white below.
Desert Cottontail
Name
Cottontails are named after their tail, which is shaped like a cottony ball. The desert portion of their common name arises from their distribution across the arid lands of the American Southwest and Plains states.
The Desert Cottontail (Sylvilagus audubonii) is a resident cottontail from much of Mexico northward through the American west north to Montana. It may inhabit pinyon-juniper woodland, brush, riparian areas as well as true desert habitats.
Cottontail numbers, like most animal populations, run in cycles of highs and lows. The population builds up to a very high level, then disease, strife and poor reproduction down to a low level.
Cottontail hunting is a popular sport in Minnesota -- in fact, it is the number one game animal in the U.S. During the 1999-2000 season, Minnesota hunters harvested about 60,000 cottontails.
A Cottontail Nest
Four eastern cottontail young are hiding out in this nest. They are older than 5 days, but young...
Spring Lake
05/09/09 ...
These cottontails are active largely in the twilight hours and at night, when they venture to open pastures, meadows, or lawns to forage. They frequently live in the edges of towns and feed in gardens and flower beds.
Desert cottontails are herbivores, and approximately 90% of their diet consists of grasses. However, they also feed on forbs, shrubs, cacti, domestic crops, and the bark of fruit trees.
Mountain Cottontail Behaviour
No observations regarding Mountain Cottontail behavior have been submitted to the database yet.
Interesting Facts about Mountain Cottontails ...
The desert cottontail is most active in the early morning and in the evening. It spends the hottest part of the day under cover.
Appalachian Cottontail (Sylvilagus obscurus)
Photograph by Carly & Art from Washington, DC. Some rights reserved. (view image details)
Appalachian Cottontail, Appalachian Trail ...
Cottontail: The cottontail rabbits are 16 lagomorph species in the genus Sylvilagus, found in the Americas. In appearance most cottontail rabbits closely resemble the wild European rabbit.
Desert Cottontail Sylvilagus audubonii (Baird)
Description: The desert cottontail is difficult to distinguish externally from the eastern cottontail, but is paler, and has longer and more thinly haired ears.
Eastern Cottontail (Sylviagus obscurus)
Chipmunks, Woodchucks, and Squirrels
Eastern Chipmunk (Tamius Striatus) ...
The Eastern Cottontail, Sylvilagus floridanus, is found throughout Florida except in the Keys, coastal marshes, and dense forests. It is grayish brown with a white underside and brown throat. It is 12-20" long.
The cottontail is grayish-brown in color, has a distinctive white "powder puff" tail, measures 14 to 17 inches in length and weighs two to four pounds. The marsh rabbit is slightly smaller, darker brown, and has coarser hair than the cottontail.
All cottontails are . They protect themselves by remaining motionless for as long as 15 minutes when closely approached.
References
By: Paul Massicot; Last modified: September 3, 2003; © 1999-2003 Animal Info
Questions or comments, please contact ...
Eastern Cottontail
Sylvilagus floridanus (scientific)
Eastern cottontails eat their own droppings! Cottontails often eat on the run; trying to evade predators. They might not properly digest food at the time they eat it.
(Cottontail rabbits)
Subgenus Tapeti: Swamp Rabbit (S. aquaticus) Â- Tapeti (S. brasiliensis) Â- Dice's Cottontail (S. dicei) Â- Omilteme Cottontail (S. insonus) Â- Marsh Rabbit (S. palustris) Â- Venezuelan Lowland Rabbit (S. varynaensis) ...
811 South Florida flatwoods 812 North Florida flatwoods 813 Cutthroat seeps 814 Cabbage palm flatwoods 815 Upland hardwood hammocks 816 Cabbage palm hammocks 817 Oak hammocks 820 Everglades flatwoods PLANT COMMUNITIES : The eastern cottontail ...
Appalachian cottontail (Sylvilagus obscurus)
ashen masked shrew (Sorex cinereus cinereus)
beaver (Castor canadensis)
big brown bat (Eptesicus fuscus fuscus)
black bear (Ursus americanus americanus)
black rat (Rattus rattus) ...
They eat primarily small mammals, such as eastern cottontail rabbits, thirteen-lined ground squirrels, and white-footed mice. They occasionally eat birds, snakes, large insects and other large invertebrates.
Many rabbits dig burrows, but cottontails and hispid hares do not. The European rabbit constructs the most extensive burrow systems, called warrens. Nonburrowing rabbits make surface nests called forms, generally under dense protective cover.
The cottontails, or wood-rabbits, of North and South America are regarded as forming a genus, Sylvilagus, by themselves, which includes the Brazilian and Paraguay hares, ...
The Swamp Rabbit is the largest North American cottontail, but has relatively short ears in proportion to its size. It forages for grasses, sedges, some tree seedlings, and other plants in marshy lowlands of the south-central United States.
8 percent; cottontails, 3.9 percent; jackrabbits, 2 percent; domestic cows, 1.6 percent; miscellaneous (including sheep, goats, skunks, foxes, coyotes, beavers, prairie dogs and grasses), 4.
An Opportunistic Hunter: The bobcat mainly hunts cottontail rabbits and snowshoe hares, but isn't so finicky as to turn up its nose at squirrels, foxes, rodents, deer and carrion.
Minnesota is home to one native wild rabbit species, the Cottontail. Cottontails live across the Americas from southern Canada to Argentina and Paraguay.
Other prey animals include: reptiles and amphibians, scorpions, young cottontail rabbits, bats, and birds, such as sparrows and horned larks. These Owls are quite versatile in the ways they capture prey.
Bobcats in the south typically hunt cottontail rabbits and populations in the north hunt snowshoe hares, but they adapt according to availability. Males will hunt larger animals, such as deer, when food is scarce.
What they eat: Coyotes are carnivorous (eat meat) -- they eat primarily small mammals, such as eastern cottontail rabbits, thirteen-lined ground squirrels, and white-footed mice.
The ermine's diet consists primarily of small rodents such as mice or lemmings, but it also preys upon larger species such as cottontails, small hares and porcupines, squirrels, pikas, rats, and even fish and birds.
Hares, pikas and rabbits (Lagomorpha) are small terrestrial mammals that include cottontails, jackrabbits, pikas, hares and rabbits. The group is also commonly referred to as lagomorphs.
A number of organisms are intimately associated with desert tortoise burrows (summarized by Grover and DeFalco 1995): ground squirrels, PEROMYSCUS and pocket mice, kangaroo rats, woodrats, jackrabbits, desert cottontail, domestic cat, spotted skunk, ...
Rodents and other small animals, including black-tailed hares, desert cottontails, mice, kangaroo rats, squirrels, birds and lizards. Kit fox do not need to drink water since their prey provides enough liquid for them to survive.
Population ...
Natural Diet: Snowshoe hares, cottontail rabbits, mice, and other rodents, as well as white-tailed deer, foxes, birds, and other animals are among bobcats' prey.
I could have opted for the luxurious Casa del Zorro instead, but it probably didn't have semi-tame desert cottontails and roadrunners living on the grounds like the Hacienda. Where do you think George Hamilton would have stayed?
Food
: Prairie dogs make up over 90% of a black-footed ferret's diet. It is believed that ferrets will occasionally eat ground squirrels, other small rodents, cottontail rabbits, and birds.
Florida scrub-jay (Aphelocoma coerulescens)
Florida sand skink (Neoseps reynoldsi)
Nene (Branta sandvicensis)
Lindheimer hackberry (Celtis lindheimeri)
New England cottontail (Sylvilagus transitionalis)
Texas red oak (Quercus buckleyi) ...
Rabbits are born naked and blind; they are cared for in a nest. Hares are born furry and open-eyed; they are cared for in the open and can hop soon after birth. Examples: brown hare, jack rabbit (a hare), eastern cottontail rabbit.
 See also: Rabbit, Burro, Coyote, Cottontail Rabbit, Mice
|
