Cottontail Rabbit

About the Cottontail Rabbit

The Eastern Cottontail is the familiar rabbit of Texas - the round-eyed, cotton-tailed silhouette browsing a park lawn at dawn or frozen mid-hop at the edge of a brushy fencerow. Few animals are more recognizable, and few are more important to the food web: nearly every predator in the state, from hawks and owls to coyotes and snakes, counts on cottontails.

That pressure explains the rabbit's whole design. The oversized ears work like radar dishes, the bulging eyes see nearly all the way around, and the powerful hindquarters launch a zigzag sprint that can hit 18 miles an hour. The white tail flash may even serve to confuse a pursuer mid-chase.

Cottontails answer heavy losses with heavy production: a female can raise several litters a year in a shallow, fur-lined scrape, and young rabbits are independent within weeks.

They thrive anywhere cover meets grass - which makes suburban Texas, with its hedges, greenbelts, and irrigated lawns, prime rabbit country. Dawn and dusk are their hours; the middle of the day is for sitting tight in a form beneath the brush, ears down, trusting stillness.