40 Fun Facts About Eastern Cottontail

A virus that grows horn-like lumps on cottontail rabbits may have inspired which mythical creature?

Jackalope tales of antlered rabbits likely grew from real animals: the Shope papilloma virus raises horn-like growths on or near a cottontail's head.

Which president used a paddle to fend off a swimming swamp rabbit, cousin of the eastern cottontail?

Jimmy Carter was fishing on a pond in Georgia in 1979 when the animal swam straight at his boat, and the press gleefully labelled it a killer rabbit attack.

To squeeze more nutrients from tough plants, an eastern cottontail swallows what for a second time?

Its own droppings, or rather the soft pellets passed after plants ferment in the gut, are eaten again so the goodness can be absorbed on a second trip.

Eastern cottontails rarely dig, so in harsh weather they shelter in burrows left by which animals?

Groundhogs leave behind roomy dens that cottontails borrow in deep snow or bitter cold; the rest of the time the rabbit simply rests above ground.

Like every rabbit, the eastern cottontail is physically unable to do which of these things?

Vomit is something no rabbit can bring up, so a blocked gut is dangerous, which is one reason a rabbit's diet needs plenty of fibre.

Which singing cowboy scored a 1950 hit with the Easter song "Here Comes Peter Cottontail"?

Gene Autry was asked to record it because his Christmas records had sold so well, and the song ended up giving the Easter Bunny an informal name.

The snowshoe hare does what each winter that its smaller cousin the eastern cottontail never does?

Turns white is the hare's trick; the cottontail only moults into a longer, greyer coat and counts on thick brush to stay hidden in the snow.

Pet bunnies are not tame eastern cottontails; every domestic breed descends from which wild species?

European rabbit is the only rabbit species people have ever domesticated, so a wild cottontail on the lawn is a more distant cousin of a pet bunny than it looks.

A mother eastern cottontail leaves her nest alone most of the day, visiting to nurse at which times?

Dawn and dusk are her only visits; before leaving she pulls the nest lining back over the babies, so a nest can look abandoned when it is not.

Which nocturnal bird of prey relies on the eastern cottontail as a staple food across much of North America?

Great horned owl diets across much of the continent rest on just a handful of prey species, and this rabbit is one of only three rabbits and hares on that short list.

Many young eastern cottontails are born with which marking on the forehead that fades as they grow?

A white blaze runs down the forehead of newborns and fades with age, though some adults keep a small pale star there for life.

What name is given to the shallow scratched-out hollow where an eastern cottontail rests by day?

A form is only a body-sized dip in grass or under brush, yet a cottontail will spend most of the day tucked into one, hidden by its camouflage.

A female eastern cottontail lines her grassy nest with which soft material just before giving birth?

Her own fur, plucked from her chest and belly, makes a warm blanket for a nest that is no more than a cup-shaped dip about as wide as a hand.

Introduced eastern cottontails now outnumber a lookalike native rabbit named after which region?

New England cottontails need dense young thickets, while the introduced eastern species copes with fields and yards; the two look so alike that DNA or a skull check is needed to tell them apart.

Eastern cottontails are not rodents; with hares and pikas, they belong to which order of mammals?

Lagomorphs were long filed as a kind of rodent and only became an order of their own in 1912, although the two groups are still close relatives.

When snow buries the grass, eastern cottontails eat which parts of shrubs and young trees?

Bark and twigs of maple, birch, oak and sumac carry them through winter, which is why orchard owners and foresters count the cottontail as a pest.

How do adult female eastern cottontails usually compare in weight with the adult males?

Slightly heavier females are the rule, though the sexes overlap so much that they cannot be told apart at a glance; a typical adult weighs under three pounds.

An adult female eastern cottontail is known by which name?

Doe is the word, and the male is a buck, the same pairing of names used for deer; she raises every litter alone, because the male plays no part in caring for the young.

Baby eastern cottontails still in the nest share which name with young foxes?

Kits, short for kittens, is the modern word for baby rabbits, while a hare under a year old goes by the older name leveret.

Unlike newborn hares, newborn eastern cottontails enter the world in which condition?

Blind and helpless at birth and weighing about an ounce, they grow fast: their eyes open within a week and they start exploring outside the nest at about two weeks.

Flushed by a predator, an eastern cottontail usually races for cover using which kind of movement?

Zigzag bounds throw a pursuer off line, and each leap can carry the rabbit several body lengths at a top speed of about 18 miles per hour.

Rabbit fever, which people can catch from an infected eastern cottontail, has which formal name?

Tularemia takes its name from Tulare County, California, where it was first identified; ticks and deer flies can pass it on as well as infected carcasses.

In eastern cottontail courtship, a pair crouch face to face until one of them does what?

Leaps into the air, and then the partner takes a turn; the display usually happens after dark and follows a chase and a bout of sparring.

Eastern cottontails are thought to signal alarm to others by thumping which body part on the ground?

Their hind feet deliver the thump, and the same powerful legs are a nesting mother's weapon: she may rush an intruder and rake it with her claws.

Eastern cottontails are usually quiet, but which sound may one make when seized by a predator?

A shrill scream, startlingly loud for such a small animal, may shock an attacker and warn other rabbits; soft purrs and grunts are saved for play, mating and fights.

When an eastern cottontail first senses danger nearby, what does it usually do before it bolts?

Freeze in place is the first move: a still, brown rabbit is hard to pick out, and it only bursts away if the threat comes too close.

The eastern cottontail, at home in suburbs and farmland, holds which status on the IUCN Red List?

Least concern, the safest category, fits the most widespread and abundant rabbit in North America, found from southern Canada to northern South America.

Which plant, notorious for giving people an itchy rash, do eastern cottontails eat in winter?

Poison ivy vines are on the winter menu in Pennsylvania, along with blackberry and raspberry canes, once the green plants of summer are gone.

The eastern cottontail's grey-brown coat has a patch of which colour on the back of the neck?

Rusty red fur on the nape is a handy field mark, and the rest of the coat shifts with the seasons, turning browner for the warm months.

Roughly how long is an eastern cottontail pregnant before giving birth to a litter of five or so?

About a month, usually 28 days, and she mates again soon after giving birth, so one female may raise three or four litters in a single year.

The eastern cottontail's genus name, Sylvilagus, was built from Latin and Greek words meaning what?

Woodland hare is the rough translation, from silva for woods and lagos for hare; the second half of the scientific name, floridanus, simply means of Florida.

Which European country saw released eastern cottontails spread fast from the 1960s?

Italy, in its northern regions, saw the newcomers undergo rapid territorial expansion and population growth, an ocean away from their home range in the Americas.

Which feature of an eastern cottontail's mouth sets rabbits apart from rodents such as squirrels?

Four upper incisors, not two: a small second pair of peg teeth sits just behind the big front ones, and all of them keep growing for life.

Eastern cottontails get heavier toward the north, a pattern named after which German biologist?

Carl Bergmann described the pattern in 1847: within a species, animals living in colder places tend to be bigger, because a larger body holds its heat better.

Which sagebrush-dwelling relative of the eastern cottontail is unusual in digging its own burrows?

Pygmy rabbit, the smallest member of the whole rabbit and hare family, lives among tall, dense sagebrush, which gives it both shelter and food.

Which American nature writer had his Peter Rabbit briefly rename himself Peter Cottontail in 1914?

Thornton Burgess let the rabbit try the grander name for barely two chapters before teasing from his friends sent him back to plain Peter Rabbit.

Hunting eastern cottontails or hares with a pack of small scent hounds is known by which name?

Beagling takes its name from the beagle, a small hound developed mainly to trail rabbits and hares by scent; the dogs are also worked in pairs to flush cottontails toward waiting guns.

In central Missouri, eastern cottontails made up most of the nesting-season diet, by weight, of which raptor?

Red-tailed hawk pairs feeding chicks leaned on cottontails for the bulk of their prey by weight, one reason so few of these rabbits live beyond their first year.

Eastern cottontails thrive in fields, hedgerows and gardens, but generally avoid which habitat?

Dense forest is the one setting they shun, so the species spread north as settlers cleared trees for farms and left brushy edges behind.

Some rabbit species crowd together in warrens, but how do adult eastern cottontails mostly live?

On their own, for the most part: adults are solitary and rather intolerant of each other, meeting mainly to mate, and each keeps to a home patch of a few acres.