European rabbit sightings in Texas cluster around Lyndon B. Johnson National Grassland, Dinosaur Valley State Park, and Possum Kingdom State Park, but these records don’t represent a native Texas rabbit. The species is native to the Iberian Peninsula, and its Texas presence traces back to escaped pets, small farm colonies, and local free-ranging groups rather than a self-sustaining population that colonized the state on its own. Texas’s own status field now correctly classifies the origin as introduced, reflecting that this is a feral population outside its native Iberian range, not a wild native species.
With 169 records, the species lands in the occasional tier among Texas mammals, and reports peak in April and May, likely reflecting when warrens are most active and easiest to notice around short grass and burrow entrances rather than a genuine breeding surge. Compared with the millions of feral rabbits that have devastated rangeland on islands and other continents, Texas’s scattered colonies stay small and local.
Full species profile
