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Cottontail Rabbit (Sylvilagus floridanus)

Cottontail Rabbit | Interstate State Park | View Enlarged Image

Cavalier Suitors

Though they are one of the most common rabbits in North America and often considered 'garden variety' wildlife, Cottontails have absolutely amazing courtship rituals. When a pretty young female attracts the attention of a male, he will chase her round for hours on end. While sprinting around, the female will often attract the attention of multiple males, who will join in the pursuit.

When multiple suitors find themselves pursuing the same girl, they'll rut, just like White-tailed Bucks; facing each other off in fantastic performances of jumping and aerial boxing. It doesn't end there either! Don't think that females will settle for any old male who wins a hopping competition. She will often ignore multiple males until she finds one that suits her, at which time she'll turn around and jump over him.

The energy they put into this amazing ritual is second only to the energy they put into the breeding itself. Cottontails are among the most prolific mammals in the Minnesota wild. Pregnant females gestate for just under a month before giving birth to a litter of up to nine baby bunnies. Females can mate again only an hour after giving birth, meaning a single female can give birth to over one hundred babies per year! Female bunnies are fertile in three months, though many go a year before breeding. Why are the so prolific? It's largely due to their high number of predators. Cottontails don't have the best chance in the wild, and depending on the predators in the area, bunny mortality rates can be as high as 90%. Adults don't have the best track record either; though Cottontails can live up to to seven years in captivity, adults average two or less in the wild.

Bad Pets

People usually 'adopt' wild Cottontails with the best intentions. Often, while raking leaves or mowing the lawn, they'll come upon a den full of baby bunnies and, believing them to be orphaned, take them home. The truth behind the matter is that Cottontail parents will often leave their nests for long periods of time, returning for only a few minutes every few hours to make sure their young are fed. Many scientists believe that rabbits do this not only to get food, but also to protect their babies from predators who might be drawn by the adult's smell. Rabbits also leave the nest at a very young age, meaning that bunnies no larger than a softball are perfectly able to fend for themselves in the wild.

Even if a Cottontail is abandoned, and in need of care, it's in the rabbit's best interests to leave its care to professional animal rehabilitationists. While there are all sorts of domestic rabbits that need good homes, it's generally not a good idea to try to domesticate or hand-raise Cottontails. Cottontails have incredible problems when it comes to dealing with stress, and can die of fright or suffer serious trauma if handled by humans. If you are concerned about a Cottontail rabbit in Minnesota, check out the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Minnesota's web site at: www.wrcmn.org. They have a great FAQ dealing with rabbits.

Not Rodents?

Despite popular belief, Rabbits are not actually rodents. They belong to an order called lagomorph; which means, naturalists believe that rabbits may be more closely related to sheep than mice and squirrels.

They Eat WHAT?!

Cottontails prefer grasses, weeds, and agricultural crops such as corn. They will eat bark during the colder months, and saplings stripped of bark at a height of a half foot or less are an almost certain sign of Cottontails. There is, however, what we as humans may consider a more grotesque side to the rabbit's diet.

Most mammals that rely on grass, twigs, evergreen needles and other greenery as a good chunk of their diet have special digestive processes that allow them to sap the maximum nutrition from the roughage. Deer and cows have multi-lobed stomachs, and rabbits have a little trick of its own.

When a meal first passes through a rabbit's digestive system, much of it is expelled with their droppings in the way of green, strong-smelling pellets of half-digested food called cecotropes. Cottontails eat cecotropes like candy, extracting loads of extra nutrition. While it may seem a bit crude to us, we need to remember that cecotropes are one of the Cottontail's evolutionary advantages that have allowed it to thrive in the wild.

Cottontail facts:

• When hurt or frightened, rabbits will produce a high-pitched squeal that sounds disturbingly like the cry of a human baby. Wildlife photographers often mimic this call to lure fox or coyotes. 
• Most people don't know that Cottontails are actually capable fighters. Mother rabbits have been known to defend their nests against large dogs by using their powerful back legs as weapons.
• The Eastern Cottontail was introduced into New England in the 1900's as a game species.
• Rabbits are very cunning animals --they have to be to survive. If a predator comes up from behind them, they will generally bolt, running zigzag to break their scent-trail. If a predator approaches them from the front, they will generally lie low, using their camouflage to avoid detection. If the panic reflex worked the same in both situations, they would end up bolting directly towards their prey, or take up valuable time (and blow their cover) turning their hind feet to run in the other direction!
• You'll notice that cats are listed under the predator column to your right. Many people see cat's role in killing songbirds and disturbing their habitat as part of the way of nature. We provide our dogs and cats with food, shelter, and medical attention, while we clear native species' habitat for roads, kill their food with pesticides, and put their lives at risk with our automobiles. In the interests of preserving nature, it's best to keep cats inside, and dogs (supervised) on a leash.
  

Multimedia:

Cottontail Rabbit | Stillwater, MN	Cottontail Rabbit trail marker; track | Stillwater, MN

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	National Audubon Society's Field Guide to Mammals
	Tracking and the Art of Seeing

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