Cottontail Rabbits

The Cottontail rabbits are a group of wild rabbit species that are closely related to each other. The 16 species of Cottontail rabbits make up the lagomorph genus Sylvilagus. These rabbits are wild rabbits which look pretty similar to the European Wild Rabbit.

Most cottontail rabbits of the Sylvilagus genus have a ‘stumpy’ tail with a white underside that can be seen when the rabbit is retreating, although this feature is not in all the cottontail rabbits (the brush rabbit is one of the exceptions).

Like all rabbits and hares, cottontail rabbits are in the Leporidae family. They belong to the Lagomorpha order along with Pikas. This means that rabbits are not rodents but lagomorphs. Click here to read more on this topic.

The diet of nearly all cottontails is very much the same with the rabbits eating mainly different species of grass, ferns and leaves. Rabbits are 100% vegetarian – this is another distinction between them and rodents as many species of the Rodentia order will eat insects, (e.g mice) and rats will eat meat.

Interestingly, cotton tail rabbits have shown more resistance to myxomatosis, a fatal disease, that European wild rabbits and unvaccinated pet rabbits have.

Here’s a brief list of some of the 16 species of cottontail rabbits: Brush Rabbit, Marsh Rabbit, Lower Keys Marsh Rabbit, Venezuelan Lowland Rabbit and the Desert Cottontail Rabbit.

Cottontail rabbits can usually be found in parts of north and south America, although only in certain regions. The majority of cottontail rabbits do not live in warrens, the underground complex mass of tunnels and burrows, but in nests called ‘forms’.