North Carolina holds more confirmed records of this mountain rabbit than any other state, and every one of them traces back to the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains high country. This is a species at the southern edge of a narrow range that runs down the spine of the central and southern Appalachians, and North Carolina’s share of that high ground makes the state an important piece of it.
Dense shrub cover is what it needs most, especially where blackberry, greenbriar, and mountain laurel reclaim old openings near forest edges. It also gnaws bark and twigs from red maple and other trees, a habit that helps it get through lean months when green growth is scarce at elevation.
Reports climb through late spring into summer and pick up again in early fall, tracking when the rabbit is easiest to spot moving through open, brushy patches. The Appalachian cottontail was only recognized as its own species in 1992, separate from the similar New England cottontail, so some older records elsewhere may still carry the wrong name even where the modern range is well understood here.
Full species profile
