The most widespread wild rabbit in North America, present from south-eastern Canada to much of South America, and capable of maintaining dense populations even in suburban gardens and parks thanks to an extraordinary reproductive capacity: a female can produce several litters a year. Unlike hares, with which it is often confused, it is born blind, hairless and completely helpless in a nest scraped into the ground, very different from a leveret, which can run almost from birth. Like other lagomorphs, it practices caecotrophy: it produces a special type of soft dropping that it ingests directly to extract nutrients missed on the first pass through the gut. Its striking white tail gives the species its English name and is the last image a predator sees during a chase—a flash that can briefly confuse its perception of the escape trajectory.
Medium-sized lagomorpha with grizzled greyish-brown fur, moderately long ears, and a short, rounded tail, white underneath and conspicuous in flight. It differs from the hares in its area by its smaller size, proportionally shorter ears and hind legs, and by not changing colour in winter as some northern hares do. Distinguishing it from other wild rabbit species is more difficult and often requires cranial examination to confirm.
Track with 4 toes on each foot, the hind track markedly more elongated, 7-9 cm, with the bounding pattern characteristic of lagomorphs: the two hind tracks aligned in front of the two fore tracks. Droppings rounded and fibrous, 1-1.3 cm, left in small scattered groups around feeding areas. In spring, the soft, shiny caecotrophy droppings may also be produced; these are usually re-ingested immediately and are therefore rarely seen in the field. Leaves small depressions in the ground (forms) beneath dense vegetation where it rests during the day, alongside twigs and bark gnawed cleanly at an angle at low height as a sign of winter feeding.
Open woodland, scrub, field margins and garden areas with dense vegetative cover, from lowlands to mid-altitude mountain zones. Distributed across eastern and central North America, with populations extending into Central America and northern South America.
Herbivorous, feeding on grasses and herbaceous plants in summer, and on bark, twigs and woody shoots in winter when green vegetation is scarce.
Solitary and mainly crepuscular and nocturnal, it crouches motionless under dense vegetation as its primary response to a threat before fleeing at a run. It has a very high reproductive capacity, producing several litters a year in the warmer parts of its range, offsetting high predation mortality.
Populations are considered stable or increasing across most of its wide range, favoured by its high reproductive capacity and adaptation to human-altered habitats.
It faces no significant threats at species level. Locally it suffers roadkill and is regular prey for numerous predators, keeping natural mortality very high.
See all species accounts for rabbits and hares · Full species index
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