Although rabbits appear to have two big front incisors (above left), they are NOT rodents; Rodentia and Lagomorpha are separate orders. Rabbits actually have FOUR upper incisors, but two of them are peg-like and positioned behind the more obvious flat ones (above right). Our photo of a rabbit skull (below) depicts a side view of this unique dentition, as well as the animal's large eye sockets. It also shows fenestrations--literally "windows" in the bones of the snout--a delicate latticework that reduces the overall weight of the skull. This is a significant adaptation for an animal that spends much of its life bounding, leaping, and hopping.

Like most rabbits, Eastern Cottontails browse on low vegetation including grasses and forbs of many species; their teeth make a 45-degree cut that provides conclusive evidence against them when they raid your garden. The Hilton Pond cottontail illustrated on this page appears to have a preference for freshly opened leaves of Virginia Creeper and Quuen Anne's Lace (below right); the latter seems appropriate because it's also called "Wild Carrot." Several times this week we watched this cottontail stand on its hind legs to reach low branches of Hackberry saplings whose leaves and twigs it likewise seemed to relish.

As green leafy matter diminishes with the onset of cold weather, a cottontail's diet shifts to bark, twigs, and terminal buds of shrubs and small trees. Despite its copious year-round consumption of vegetation, to consider the Eastern Cottontail an herbivore is a bit misleading. Since plant material is mostly cellulose, the rabbit has a problem; animals in general--including humans who use salads and cereals as "roughage"--are unable to digest this complex carbohydrate. In fact, a close look at dried "rabbit raisins"--the cottontail's spherical droppings (below left)--will reveal each is a compact mass of undigested plant fibers. Fortunately, the rabbit has several million very close friends--microbes that live within a caecal pouch of its intestine--and these unicellular organisms CAN digest some of the cellulose and turn it into simple sugars. The only way the rabbit can harvest this cornucopia is to be coprophagic, i.e., eat its own liquid feces that contain protein-rich dead microbes and the sugars they produced. If you've ever wondered why Eastern Cottontails and their kin spend an inordinate amount of time grooming their hind regions, its because that's where lunch comes from. Such behavior is unappetizing to people, but it certainly works well for lagomorphs, and we ought not make Human Value Judgments (HVJs) about this rabbit habit.

Eastern Cottontails are primarily crepuscular (dusk- and dawn-active) or nocturnal, spending most of their daylight hours in brushpiles or beneath fallen logs; some individuals may dig burrows or occupy dens of other animals. There they nap, groom, and let microbes do their work, occasionally venturing out during the day in locations where predators are scarce. In the natural scheme adult rabbits are taken by Bobcats, Gray and Red Foxes, avian raptors, and weasels, while young are often eaten in the nest by Black Ratsnakes, Copperheads, and other large serpents. Huge numbers of cottontails are also killed by unnatural predators such as free-roaming cats and dogs and automobile tires.

In the Carolinas, male Eastern Cottontails (bucks) are ready to breed by late winter and remain sexually active through the summer. Does come into heat at about the same time, depending on factors such as temperature, photoperiod, and the all-important emergence of green vegetation. When the buck spots a fertile female, he gives chase until the doe finally turns, faces him, and punches out with her forepaws. Then the prospective mates crouch until one suddenly leaps a few feet into the air, followed by a similar jump by the other. After repeating their leaps several times--perhaps as indicators of how healthy each rabbit is--copulation occurs.

Contrary to John James Audubon's idyllic rendering above, after mating the buck has nothing to do with female--or their offspring. Near the end of a month-long gestation period the doe builds a ground nest lined with fur and soft grasses. Her naked, blind babies weigh about an ounce at birth, but mother's milk helps them grow so rapidly they are furred and able to leave the nest after about two weeks. Weaning occurs at 21 days, and the siblings disperse at seven weeks. A healthy adult doe will produce 3-5 litters per year--more in the Deep South where the species may breed year-round--and since sexual maturity occurs at 2-3 months even young of the year have time to reproduce before the onset of winter.

Eastern Cottontails are native meadow and woodland-edge mammals that have adapted to suburban--even urban--locales. Despite loss of natural habitats, their sharp vision, keen hearing, and natural camouflage help them survive and propagate in spite of human development. Last week at Hilton Pond Center a young student asked how a couple of our Eastern Cottontails could practically fade from view as she observed them moving toward the woods. We pondered the question and started to reply scientifically that cryptic coloration allows these "wascally wabbits" to blend with their backgrounds, but keeping in mind that spring holidays were upon us responded instead that "Everybody knows they disappear into thin air because they're Ether Bunnies."

Happy Ether!