![[Cottontail rabbit information.]](rabbit.gif)
What do they look like?Cottontail rabbits are small animals with speckled brown fur, which fades to white underneath. They have big eyes, long ears, and large hind legs and feet. Seldom weighing more than three pounds or exceeding 15 inches in length, they are named after their tails - a small tuft of white fur.
Where are they found?
Cottontails are found throughout Maryland on farms, in orchards, and in backyards. They are abundant in all counties, but are
usually more plentiful in Piedmont and mountainous areas. Fewer reside in parts of the Eastern Shore where large amounts of seasonally
wet areas exist.
What do they eat?
Almost exclusively vegetarian, cottontails use a wide variety of plants for food. During summer, they feed on tender green
shoots, sprouts, leaves, clover, sedges amd grasses. In the fall, herbaceous plants such as ragweed and crabgrass are utilized.
Winter foods include buds, stems, and tips of low growin shurbs, vines and tree bark. They get their water from the plants they eat.
What other kind of rabbits live in Maryland?
The Appalachian cottontail is a rabbit in need of conservation in Maryland. The snowshoe hare is a related animal that exists in small
numbers in Western Maryland.
I didn't know that!
Rabbits are different from hares in that their young are born blind, naked and helpless. Hares are born with their eyes open,
fully furred, and well developed. Hares also have longer legs than rabbits. Most domestic (pet) "rabbits" are hares.
Drawing by: W.H. Henry