Common Name: Cottontail rabbit Scientific Name: Sylvilagus floridanus Female Name: Doe Male Name: Buck Name of Young: Bunnies Senses and Physiology The average cottontail rabbit averages from 14 to 18 inches long. Weights are on the average of two to four pounds. Females are generally 1 to 10% larger than the males. Cottontails' large ears can be rotated to catch sounds from different directions and thus offer the cottontail a keen sense of hearing. Eyesight is also keen as is the sense of smell. Cottontails can live up to 10 years but rarely live past one year because of predation. Food Cottontails are predominately vegetarians. However, they will ingest some insects while feeding on plants. Some cases show that rabbits will resort to snails and carrion. Grasses, legumes, crops, browse and tree bark are the staple food of rabbits. Legumes are a preferred food of rabbits. Bark, buds, and stems become important winter foods. Rabbits often engage in corpophragy which involves the consumption of green fecal pellets so that further extraction of nutrients can be accomplished with easier digestibility. Water Rabbit populations are rarely limited by the availability of water. Most of the water rabbits need comes from either the dew on vegetation or from consuming succulent vegetation. Rabbits will use standing water. Cover Cottontails exist wherever adequate cover and escape routes are available. Typically, rabbits prefer a mixture of dense and open cover. Dense, low grassy fields of 3 to 4 years of age offer good habitat. Additionally, rabbits like openings in woods that are about 1 acre in size. Weedy field edges of 30 feet also offer good cover. Rabbits also seek shelter in underground holes, hollow logs, and rock or brush piles of 12 to 15 feet in width and 5 to 6 feet in height that are near weedy patches. Good areas have such piles 50 to 100 yards apart.

Cottontail Rabbit

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