Holzner’s cottontail was only recently split out from the mountain and robust cottontails it used to be lumped with, and even biologists have trouble telling the three apart on sight. So the striking 17,373 Texas records tied to Big Bend, Guadalupe Mountains, and the Davis Mountains likely include a fair number of look-alike cottontails swept in under the new name rather than confirmed sightings of this specific species.
Records climb through late winter and peak hard in April before tapering off for the rest of the year, plausibly tracking spring breeding activity and, just as likely, when rabbit-watchers are out. Texas has no NatureServe rank for the species at all, SNR, unranked, which fits a rabbit so newly described that conservation agencies haven’t yet had time to assess it here.
