Florida’s 7,506 eastern cottontail records reach every corner of the state, led by Alachua, Palm Beach, and Orange counties. The cottontail is Florida’s rabbit of dry, brushy edges, leaving the wet marshes and flooded hammocks to the swimming marsh rabbit and holding the fields, fence lines, and scrub margins instead.
An edge animal that never digs
Unlike most rabbits, the cottontail excavates no burrow. It rests by day in a shallow ground form hidden in grass, and the doe raises her litter in a fur-lined scrape barely deeper. Escape is its whole defense, a frozen crouch, then a zigzag sprint with the white tail flashing. Florida’s named sites fit that open-edge life, Paynes Prairie Preserve, Oscar Scherer State Park, Kissimmee Prairie Preserve, and the University of Central Florida Natural Area.
A long breeding season in a warm state
Reports build through spring and peak from April through June, when a doe may already be on her second or third litter of the year. In Florida’s climate the breeding season stretches well beyond what northern cottontails manage, and nesting females and fresh young keep the rabbit conspicuous for months at a stretch.
Status in Florida
NatureServe has not assigned the eastern cottontail a state rank in Florida (SNR, Unranked), though the species is G5, secure, rangewide. It is native to the state, and USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
Full species profile
