Desert cottontails favor dry brush and scrub rather than the grassy edges other Texas rabbits prefer, and the record pattern bears that out: Big Bend, the Guadalupe Mountains, and the Davis Mountains, all arid Trans-Pecos terrain, dominate where the species turns up in the state’s data.
Counts rise through spring and peak between April and June, likely tracking breeding-season activity and the extra movement that comes with it, though desert visibility and observer travel patterns in summer heat can shape the numbers just as much.
NatureServe ranks the species S5, secure, in Texas, and it’s a commonly recorded rabbit in state data, at the 84th percentile, one of several small mammals whose desert range gives it fairly consistent detection across West Texas’s open terrain.
Full species profile
