Sylvilagus transitionalis

Geographic Range

New England cottontails live exclusively in the New England region of the United States. However, destruction of their habitat means that the modern distribution of these rabbits occupies less than 25% historically occupied areas.

• Biogeographic Regions
• nearctic nearctic
  • native native

Habitat

New England cottontails live in woodlands in New England, preferring those of higher elevation or more northern latitudes. The forests where New England cottontails make their homes all have dense understory cover, preferably of blueberry or mountain laurel. New England cottontails make nests in depressions roughly 12 cm deep by 10 cm wide and line them with grasses and fur. They rarely venture more than 5 m from cover.

• Habitat Regions
• temperate temperate
• terrestrial terrestrial

• Terrestrial Biomes
• forest forest

Physical Description

New England cottontails are medium-sized rabbits that closely resemble eastern cottontails . They weigh between 995 and 1347 g and have lengths between 398 and 439 mm. Their coats are dark brown with a penciled effect and their tails have white undersides. New England cottontails can be differentiated from eastern cottontails by the black hair between and on the anterior surface of their ears. New England cottontails sexually dimorphic, with larger females than males.

• Other Physical Features
• endothermic endothermic
• homoiothermic
• bilateral symmetry bilateral symmetry

• Sexual Dimorphism
• female larger

Reproduction

During mating, male New England cottontails form breeding groups around dominant females in areas of the habitat with plentiful food and good cover. Courtship of cottontails involves a running and jumping display, often in which one rabbit jumps over the other. Though linear hierarchies for female cottontails are not clearly defined, once paired off, the unreceptive female demonstrates dominance over the male during nesting, parturition and nursing to avoid harassment by males.

Testes of male New England cottontails begin to enlarge in late December and pregnant females appear between April and August. Gestation period is about 28 days, and female New England cottontails have 2 to 3 litters per year that average 5.2 young per litter. New England cottontails usually copulate again immediately following parturition. Sylvilagus transitionalis is short-lived and breeds at an early age, with many juvenile rabbits breeding in their first season. Reproductive patterns vary with latitudes - the farther north the habitat of the cottontail, the larger the litter and the shorter the gestation period. This allows them to produce more litters in warmer weather. The young are born naked with their eyes closed, so mothers care for their young in nests for 2 to 3 weeks after birth. The mother has often mated again by the time the juveniles have left the nest.

• Key Reproductive Features
• iteroparous iteroparous
• seasonal breeding seasonal breeding
• gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate)
• sexual sexual
• viviparous viviparous

The parental investment of Sylvilagus transitionalis is minimal. There is no investment by male cottontails and female cottontails nurse their young in the nest for about 16 days.

• Parental Investment
• altricial altricial
• female parental care female parental care
• pre-fertilization
  • provisioning
  • protecting
    • female
• pre-hatching/birth
  • provisioning
    • female
  • protecting
    • female
• pre-weaning/fledging
  • provisioning
    • female

Lifespan/Longevity

Like all cottontails, Sylvilagus transitionalis has a short lifespan in the wild, usually no more than three years. On average, only 15% of the young will survive their first year.

Behavior

New England cottontails are solitary animals -- specific connections between them are restricted to mating. They are also timid and do not often stray more than 5 m from cover. Like other rabbits and hares , New England cottontails groom themselves extensively.

• Key Behaviors
• cursorial
• terricolous
• crepuscular crepuscular
• motile motile
• sedentary sedentary
• solitary solitary

Home Range

Home range for New England cottontails greatly varies with habitat size. Home ranges span anywhere from 0.1 to 7.6 ha, depending on the size and density of the patch. However, most home ranges are about 1 ha. Males tend to have slightly larger ranges than females.

Communication and Perception

New England cottontails, like other cottontails , have strong hearing and eyesight. They make low, purring, grunting, or growling sounds when they are breeding or fighting and utter a loud, shrill scream if captured by a predator. In addition, New England cottontails often hit the ground with their hind feet, which may be a means of communication to other rabbits. Like other mammals, olfactory clues are also likely to be important.

• Communication Channels
• acoustic acoustic
• chemical chemical

• Perception Channels
• visual visual
• tactile tactile
• acoustic acoustic
• chemical chemical

Food Habits

New England cottontails are herbivorous. The specific makeup of their diet depends on the season. In the spring and summer, they eat mostly grasses and forbs. In the fall, they transition to a diet of woody twigs, and the winter diet is determined primarily by forage ability. Digestion in New England cottontails employs coprophagy, in which soft feces is re-ingested to increase the amount of nitrogen in the diet.

• Primary Diet
• herbivore herbivore
  • folivore folivore
  • lignivore
• coprophage coprophage

• Plant Foods
• leaves
• wood, bark, or stems
• flowers

• Other Foods
• dung

Predation

New England cottontails fall prey to small and medium sized predators such as weasels, cats, foxes, and birds of prey. While hares are built for long-term speed to outrun predators, New England cottontails sprint for cover when danger approaches. They sometimes freeze when they sense danger, taking advantage of their cryptic coloration to hide. When chased, they zig-zag to confuse the predator. New England cottontails that occupy the smallest habitat patches, with less vegetative cover, are most vulnerable to predation, as they are forced to forage more in the open.

• Anti-predator Adaptations
• cryptic cryptic

Ecosystem Roles

New England cottontails are prey to mid-sized predators such as foxes, weasels, and birds of prey, and act as the staple food source for many of these predators. In areas where food is plentiful, their populations are able to sustain great losses because of their rapid reproductive rates. In some areas, New England cottontails are considered a buffer prey species. This means that if their numbers are high, predators will focus on them, thereby reducing the pressure on other prey species in the area.

Economic Importance for Humans: Positive

Historically, many people have hunted New England cottontails for sport, fur, and meat. Due to the declining numbers of Sylvilagus transitionalis , the hunting of this species has greatly decreased over the past 20 years or so, though it does still occur. New England cottontails and other cottontails are often used for ecological research, as their size and temperament makes them easy to handle and they have high population turnover.

• Positive Impacts
• food food
• body parts are source of valuable material
• research and education

Economic Importance for Humans: Negative

New England cottontails host many types of parasites, including ticks, and thus can provide a vector for tick-borne diseases such as Rocky Mountain spotted fever, Lyme disease, and tularemia. These diseases are easily transferable to humans and domestic pets.

• Negative Impacts
• injures humans
  • causes disease in humans causes disease in humans
• causes or carries domestic animal disease causes or carries domestic animal disease

Conservation Status

Since the 1960's there has been widespread decline of New England cottontail populations. It is estimated that available habitats for New England cottontails have declined by 86% since 1960. While many theories for this decline have been proposed, the three most common are habitat loss, competition with eastern cottontails , and hybridization with eastern cottontails .

Additional Links

Encyclopedia of Life

BioKIDS Critter Catalog

Contributors

Tessa Berenson (author), Yale University, Eric Sargis (editor), Yale University, Rachel Racicot (editor), Yale University, Tanya Dewey (editor), University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, Catherine Kent (editor), Special Projects.

References

Barry, R., J. Lazell, J. Litvaitis. 2011. "IUCN Red List of Threatened Species" (On-line). Accessed April 10, 2012 at http://www.iucnredlist.org/apps/redlist/details/21212/0 .

Burton, M., R. Burton. 2002. Cottontail. Pp. 545-548 in International Wildlife Encyclopedia , Vol. Chickaree - Crabs, 3 Edition. Tarrytown, New York: Marshall Cavendish Corporation. Accessed April 12, 2012 at http://books.google.com/books?id=BumyQJ14n8sC&pg=PA545&lpg=PA545&dq=sylvilagus+transitionalis+sense&source=bl&ots=9D9v3Euizh&sig=gtq6xpW5ydRMu4dZceillGam1TM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=nzaHT6OzBqXq0gHp8uHtBw&ved=0CDcQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=sylvilagus%20transitionalis%20sense&f=false .

Chapman, J., J. Flux. 1990. Rabbits, Hares and Pikas: Status Survey and Conservation Action Plan . Gland, Switzerland: International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. Accessed February 14, 2012 at http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Q994k86i0zYC&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=sylvilagus+transitionalis+mating&ots=RpnBPqPzM_&sig=E7aEVxay2j8rsztuq-plgdJinxg#v=onepage&q=sylvilagus%20transitionalis%20mating&f=false .

Chapman, J., J. Flux. 2008. Introduction to the Lagomorpha. Lagomorph Biology , 1: 1-9. Accessed February 15, 2012 at http://bilder.buecher.de/zusatz/22/22917/22917342_lese_1.pdf .

Kays, R., D. Vilson. 2009. Mammals of North America . Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Accessed February 14, 2012 at http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=YjIIRZwbWIEC&oi=fnd&pg=PA6&dq=sylvilagus+transitionalis+lifespan&ots=3bDWJXSL1K&sig=QVVTB3i56kLMgUcFFEJnG52G_Uc#v=onepage&q=sylvilagus%20transitionalis&f=false .

Litvaitis, J., W. Jakubas. 2004. "New England Cottontail (Sylvilagus transitionalis) Assessment 2004" (On-line pdf). Accessed April 27, 2012 at http://www.maine.gov/ifw/wildlife/species/plans/mammals/newenglandcottontail/speciesassessment.pdf .

Litvaitus, J., M. Barbour, A. Brown, A. Kovach, M. Litvaitus, J. Oehler, B. Probert, D. Smith, J. Tash, R. Villafuerte. 2008. Testing Multiple Hypotheses to Identify Causes of the Decline of a Lagomorph Species: The New England Cottontail as a Case Study. Lagomorph Biology , 2: 167-185. Accessed February 14, 2012 at http://www.springerlink.com/content/r661q637110l044v/fulltext.pdf .

Litvaitus, J., J. Tash. 2004. Species Profile: New England Cottontail. New Hampshire Wildlife Action Plan , 1: 303-312. Accessed February 14, 2012 at http://www.wildlife.state.nh.us/Wildlife/Wildlife_Plan/WAP_species_PDFs/Mammals/NewEnglandCotto.pdf .

2012. "Species Profile for New England Cottontail rabbit (Sylvilagus transitionalis)" (On-line). U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Accessed April 27, 2012 at http://ecos.fws.gov/speciesProfile/profile/speciesProfile.action?spcode=A09B .

2012. "Wildlife in Connecticut Wildlife Factsheet- Cottontail Rabbits" (On-line pdf). State of Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection - Wildlife Division. Accessed April 27, 2012 at http://www.ct.gov/dep/lib/dep/wildlife/pdf_files/outreach/fact_sheets/ctntail.pdf .