It's amazing, to me, how many people believe that a cottontail is analogous to the friendly, fluffy domestic rabbit that's napping in a cage in their house.
Well, they're not completely wrong, I'll give them that.
Well, they're not completely wrong, I'll give them that.
A Warning on Wild Rabbit Welfare
However, as a side note, that mentality can also be dangerous when it comes to a rabbit's welfare. All too often (especially living in a rural wooded area of the northeast US), I hear, "I found a baby bunny! It's so cute; I'm gonna keep it". I have only one reply to that news: NO. I will say no a thousand times, as hypocritical as it may be when I have a wild cottontail laying two feet away from me. To keep it short, the process that turned the European wild rabbit into a friendly companion took over a thousand years to reach the point it's at today, and efforts to do the same with the eastern cottontail have never been successful...they're that wild. These are extremely anxious, flighty animals that even professional wildlife rehabilitators struggle (or fail to) raise, even in perfect conditions. It took Squirrel over five years of constant reassurance and patience to even start feeling comfortable with me petting her back with two fingers.
If you're dead set on having a cottontail as a pet, you have to be a special kind of crazy, in which case no words would ever deter you...but I'd recommend looking into similar legal alternatives such as the San Juan rabbit, bred for training hunting dogs.
If you're dead set on having a cottontail as a pet, you have to be a special kind of crazy, in which case no words would ever deter you...but I'd recommend looking into similar legal alternatives such as the San Juan rabbit, bred for training hunting dogs.
A Bunny is a Bunny, Right?
If these four rabbits were put in the same room, the average person would have quite a bit of trouble identifying which are domestic and which are wild cottontails.
Let's start with the basics. The eastern cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus) and domestic rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) have very fundamental differences, which you can determine just by the fact that they are not even a part of the same genus. In fact, the domestic rabbit is still considered to be of the same species as the European wild rabbit that it derives from. While both share the family Leporidae that defines them as rabbits, they are not quite analogous.
If you were to find a confused-looking agouti rabbit hopping about in your backyard, the easiest way to decipher whether or not it's meant to be there is by looking at the head. Compare the top two images above; the cottontail (right) has a narrower, more triangular face and large round eyes set wide on the face.
However, my personal go-to for figuring out if a rabbit is domestic is by looking at the ears. The European wild rabbit, as well as its friendly descendant, has much longer ears that are much more slender along the entire length, and thicker (especially at the edges). This is what the stereotypical rabbit ear looks like. On the other hand, the ears of a cottontail are so thin that light easily passes through them, as seen above, and are much shorter and rounder. When Squirrel started growing into her adult form, I was actually shocked at how small her ears were, and wondered if there was something wrong with her...until I paid more attention to her relatives in my woods.
Let's start with the basics. The eastern cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus) and domestic rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) have very fundamental differences, which you can determine just by the fact that they are not even a part of the same genus. In fact, the domestic rabbit is still considered to be of the same species as the European wild rabbit that it derives from. While both share the family Leporidae that defines them as rabbits, they are not quite analogous.
If you were to find a confused-looking agouti rabbit hopping about in your backyard, the easiest way to decipher whether or not it's meant to be there is by looking at the head. Compare the top two images above; the cottontail (right) has a narrower, more triangular face and large round eyes set wide on the face.
However, my personal go-to for figuring out if a rabbit is domestic is by looking at the ears. The European wild rabbit, as well as its friendly descendant, has much longer ears that are much more slender along the entire length, and thicker (especially at the edges). This is what the stereotypical rabbit ear looks like. On the other hand, the ears of a cottontail are so thin that light easily passes through them, as seen above, and are much shorter and rounder. When Squirrel started growing into her adult form, I was actually shocked at how small her ears were, and wondered if there was something wrong with her...until I paid more attention to her relatives in my woods.
But that's not all...
Also of note is the difference in general body shape when it comes to the two species. The cottontail can be quite misleading in this aspect; it's very compact and small (only about 2-3lbs.!) when sitting, but they can stretch to ridiculous extremes if the situation demands it. As you can see in the two images on the left, the cottontail has a much smaller, more streamlined and slender trunk that allows it to reach delicious things overhead with more grace than a domestic would have.
In addition, the pictures on the right show the almost terrifying contrast in leg structure between the two species. (The stretching cottontail is NOT photoshopped. I've seen Squirrel do that after getting up from a nap while arching her back and yawning...nightmare fuel.) In many ways, the cottontail is like a well-bred racehorse when compared to the sluggish, lumbering domestic. Those supermodel legs allow the wild rabbit to run at 18-25mph for up to half a mile, zigzagging the entire way to avoid predators...an incredible feat for such an often-overlooked creature!
In addition, the pictures on the right show the almost terrifying contrast in leg structure between the two species. (The stretching cottontail is NOT photoshopped. I've seen Squirrel do that after getting up from a nap while arching her back and yawning...nightmare fuel.) In many ways, the cottontail is like a well-bred racehorse when compared to the sluggish, lumbering domestic. Those supermodel legs allow the wild rabbit to run at 18-25mph for up to half a mile, zigzagging the entire way to avoid predators...an incredible feat for such an often-overlooked creature!