The desert cottontail is one of Colorado’s most widespread rabbits. Open occurrence databases hold 3,337 records for it in Colorado, spanning the dry western valleys, the eastern plains, and the built-up edges of the Front Range.
A rabbit of dry, open ground
This is the arid-country cottontail, at home in grassland, sagebrush flats, pinyon-juniper mesas, and the green streamside strips that thread through otherwise dry terrain. Its noticeably longer ears and paler coat separate it from Colorado’s other cottontails, both adaptations to warm, sun-exposed, open ground. It also tolerates people well, which is why suburban Boulder, Adams, and Denver counties log so many sightings alongside the redrock country of Colorado National Monument and Mesa Verde.
Active around the edges of the day
Records build through spring and hold high across the warm months before easing into winter, though the rabbit is present the whole year. It feeds most at dawn and dusk on grasses, forbs, and even cactus pads, then rests through the midday heat in shade or a borrowed burrow. Unlike a jackrabbit, it stays close to cover and bolts only a short distance to shelter rather than running the open flats.
Status in Colorado
NatureServe ranks the desert cottontail apparently secure in Colorado, and the IUCN lists it as least concern. It is native and abundant here, and almost any of the state’s lower-elevation parks and monuments offer a good chance of spotting one browsing at a trail edge near dusk.
Full species profile
