The desert cottontail is the dry-country counterpart of the familiar eastern cottontail, and in Nebraska it keeps to the western high plains. Its 57 records spread across 15 counties, with Sioux, Dawes, Morrill, and Dundy at the core, a map of shortgrass, sandy breaks, and dry uplands at the northeastern edge of the species’ range.
A rabbit that makes do with little
True to its name, this cottontail tolerates arid country that other rabbits avoid. It meets most of its water needs from its food, grasses and herbs while they are green, cactus, bark, and dry browse when they are not, and it escapes midday heat in the burrows of other animals, a habit the eastern cottontail rarely shares. Its long ears, noticeably larger than its eastern cousin’s, bleed off heat on the open plain. The records from Agate Fossil Beds National Monument, Oglala National Grassland, Fort Robinson State Park, and the hand-planted pines of Nebraska National Forest all sit in exactly that kind of lean, open country.
Summer young on the move
Like all cottontails, this species stays active year-round and raises several litters through the warm months. Nebraska’s counts crest in July, when vegetation is rank and young rabbits leave the nest to feed in the open, the season when a desert cottontail is most likely to show itself at dawn or dusk along a sandy two-track.
Status in Nebraska
NatureServe ranks the desert cottontail S4, Apparently Secure, in Nebraska, and the species is native to the state. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
Full species profile
