The white-tailed jackrabbit is a true hare of Wyoming’s open country, built for running across sagebrush flats and prairie rather than hiding in brush. Its 362 records spread broadly across the state’s basins, Albany County leading with 90, Sweetwater, Natrona, Carbon, and Park counties close behind, and Yellowstone National Park’s high meadows holding the largest named cluster.
White in winter, gray in summer
Like the snowshoe hare, this jackrabbit changes coat with the day length, turning white as snow arrives and molting back to gray-brown in spring. Long legs, huge ears that shed heat in summer, and a habit of fleeing in long bounds rather than crouching mark it as an animal of ground too open for cover to matter.
Active in every month
Wyoming’s record climbs from a quiet March to a July crest, when breeding-season movement peaks and young hares begin foraging on their own. Unlike many northern mammals the jackrabbit never dens through the cold, and reports continue in every month of winter, when a white hare on bare ground can be the most visible thing in the basin.
Status in Wyoming
NatureServe ranks the white-tailed jackrabbit S4, Apparently Secure, in Wyoming, and the species is native to the state. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
Full species profile
