The black-tailed jackrabbit is a hare of Colorado’s open eastern plains. Open occurrence databases hold 549 records for it in Colorado, most from the shortgrass rangeland and dry grasslands east of the mountains.
A hare, not a rabbit
Despite the name, this is a true hare, built for speed rather than concealment. Its enormous black-tipped ears and long hind legs mark it at a glance, and its young are born furred and open-eyed, ready to move within hours of birth. That sets it apart from the cottontails, whose kits are born naked and helpless in a nest. Where a cottontail hides, a jackrabbit runs, exploding from cover in a zigzagging sprint that can top 37 miles per hour.
Where it turns up in Colorado
This is a creature of open, level country, and its sightings follow the grasslands. The eastern plains counties of Weld, El Paso, Pueblo, Bent, and Las Animas carry the most records, and the shortgrass expanses of the Pawnee and Comanche national grasslands are its reliable strongholds. It avoids dense forest and broken terrain, favoring sparsely vegetated ground where it can see a predator coming and outrun it.
When it shows up
Reports rise through late spring and early summer, then thin across the colder months. The jackrabbit stays active all year and does not hibernate, so the seasonal dip owes more to its largely nocturnal habit and to fewer observers on the winter plains than to any real absence. It feeds after dark on grasses and forbs and spends the day resting in a shallow scrape called a form.
Full species profile
