Real cottontails have shameless publicity to thank for their success — at least in part.
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White Rabbit purses (complete with cottontails) hang beside Minnie Mouse-inspired white gloves — bedecked with polka-dot bows — and earrings featuring white pearls and poisoned fruit.
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While paying a house call to a woman to sell her fish fingerlings, he noticed a pair of particularly plump cottontails in a hutch behind her property.
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For live music, we booked The Cottontails — a local S.F. jazz band — they added such an amazing vibe to our outdoor cocktail party and people absolutely loved them.
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Active throughout the winter, cottontails prefer to feed on green leafy plants in summer, but they resort to twigs, vines and other rougher fare as the seasons change.
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I look around at all the ways I've tried to help — at the reusable grocery bags and the solar-field subscription, at the pollinator garden and the little meadow of wildflowers, at the lawn mower blades set high enough to harm no snakes or nesting cottontails, at the recycle bins and the worm composter, at the nest box for the bluebirds and the nest box for the house wrens and the nest box claimed this year by a red wasp — and it all strikes me as puny, laughable, at best a way to feel better about myself.
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Fairly strong numbers of cottontails were also reported in New Mexico and Durango. In Missouri, the widely found eastern cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus) was the most significant contributor of biomass, making up 14.5% of the total biomass. On average, in Missouri, the body mass of eastern cottontails caught was , indicating juvenile eastern cottontails are usually caught. However, there are several known cases of adult eastern cottontails falling prey to Cooper's hawks, including cottontails estimated to weigh from .
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The Appalachian cottontail and S. transitionalis, the New England cottontail, are not easily distinguished in the field, and are most easily identified geographically. Cottontails found south or west of the Hudson River are considered Appalachian cottontails, those found north and east are considered New England cottontails. The species can otherwise be identified by chromosome number and skull measurements. Female Appalachian cottontails are typically larger than males with reproductive needs being the most likely cause.
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Newborn cottontails are particularly vulnerable to these attacks. Cottontails use burrows vacated by other animals, and the burrows are used for long enough periods that predators can learn where the cottontails reside and repeatedly return to predate the lagomorphs. Though cottontails are prolific animals that can have multiple litters in a year, few of the resulting offspring survive to adulthood. Those that do grow very quickly and are full grown adults at three months.
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New England cottontails are herbivores whose diet varies based on the season and local forage opportunities. In the spring and summer, the New England cottontails primarily eats herbaceous plants (including leaves, stems, wood, bark, flowers, fruits, and seeds) from grasses and forbs. Beginning in the fall and continuing into the winter, New England cottontails transition to mostly woody plants.
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Parental investment is minimal: there is no investment by male cottontails, and female cottontails nurse their young in the nest for about 16 days, often having mated again by the time the juveniles have left the nest.
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The tail is also much reduced from the bushy tail seen in cottontails.
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The piping plover is designated federally threatened and state endangered in Maine. Fifty to 75% of the Maine piping plover population nests at sites on or near the refuge, including Crescent Surf Beach, Goosefare Brook, and Marshall Point at Goose Rocks. New England cottontails (Sylvilagus transitionalis) are found in Maine. Cottontails inhabit early successional habitat that was relatively abundant in the early to mid-20th century.
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New England cottontails breed two to three times a year. Generally, the testes of the male New England cottontails begin to enlarge in late December. The breeding season varies based on local elevation and latitude, and can span from January to September. The breeding season in Connecticut lasts from mid-March to mid- September, while the breeding season in Maine lasts from April to August.
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Pregnant female New England cottontails appear between April and August. The gestation period is around twenty-eight days. Litter size ranges from three to eight, with an average of 5.2 (as given by one source) or 3.5 (as given by another). Generally, cottontails who live in more northern habitats have shorter gestation periods and larger litters, so they produce more litters during warmer weather.
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Due to seasonality and changes in moisture conditions of their habitat, cottontails adjust their diets based on many influential factors that impact the seasonal changes of vegetation (i.e. moisture content, abundance, nutrition value, etc.). Like most lagomorphs, it is coprophagic, re-ingesting and chewing its own feces to extract the nutrients as effectively as possible. The desert cottontail, like all cottontails, eats on all fours.
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A wide variety of migratory songbirds can be found during spring, while multiple species of woodpecker overwinter. Striped skunks and Eastern cottontails are present as well.
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The point has a dense bird population, especially during migration season. Other wildlife include gray squirrels, eastern chipmunks, and eastern cottontails, along with some nocturnal species.
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Due to the variable temperature of living conditions, desert cottontails must be adequate thermoregulators to minimize water loss during the hotter seasons and require shaded areas of their environment to conduct evaporative water loss through thermal heat transfer. In open-desert areas, they can withstand for a short period with extremely high temperatures of around 45 °C and have a large evaporative water loss capacity of around 1.5% body mass/hour, though cottontails can withstand longer in an ideal environment with shaded areas. To cope with evaporative heat loss, they do panting and undergo changes in production of their basal metabolic rate in relation to the ambient temperature of the environment. Ears of desert cottontails make up 14% of their body size and may help with thermoregulation.
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S. aquaticus is the largest of the cottontail species, although its ears are smaller than of other cottontails. Males are slightly larger than females. The head and back are typically dark or rusty brown or black, while the throat, ventral surface, and tail are white, and there is a cinnamon-colored ring around the eye. Their sides, rump, tail and feet are much more brownish, along with a pinkish-cinnamon eye-ring, as opposed to the whitish eye-ring in eastern cottontails.
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With adult weights of in adult cottontails, in snowshoe hares and in black-tailed jackrabbits, these species are overall the largest regular prey for this species. In Utah, where great horned owls are dependent on the jackrabbits, average brood size rose from 2 at jackrabbit population lows to 3.3 when the jackrabbits were at their peak. At the peak of population cycle, jackrabbits accounted for 90.2% and desert cottontails (Sylvilagus audubonii) for another 8.7% of prey biomass.Smith, D. G. and J. R. Murphy. 1979.
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Depending on the elevation, flora and fauna in this wilderness include desert cottontails, black-tailed jackrabbits, Gambel's quail, desert sagebrush, oaks, pinyon pines, junipers, Arizona cypress, catclaw acacia, false palo verde, and banana yucca, among others.
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Shinnery oak habitats are used by black- tailed jackrabbits, desert cottontails, eastern cottontails, wild turkeys, western box turtles, a diversity of arthropods, approximately 25 snake species, and approximately 10 lizard species, including the endangered sand dune lizard (Sceloporus arenicolus). Many game species also rely on shinnery oak. Scaled quail and northern bobwhites use shinnery oak habitats extensively, and shinnery oak habitats are considered "the principal home for white-tailed deer in the southern Great Plains". Shinnery oak provides rich habitat for wildlife compared with the surrounding shortgrass plains.
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The desert cottontail's normal behavior upon spotting a potential predator is to freeze in place in an attempt to avoid being detected. If it determines that it is in danger, it will flee the area by hopping away in a zigzag pattern. Cottontails can reach speeds of over . When defending itself against small predators or other desert cottontails, it will nudge with its nose, or slap with its front paws, usually preceded by a hop straight upwards as high as two feet when threatened or taken by surprise.
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While not adapted for chasing fleet-footed prey, at least one specimen was observed pursuing gray cottontails into their burrows. When in season, the skunk will also consume vegetable matter, such as apples, blueberries, black cherries, ground cherries, corn and nightshade.
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Known predators of New England cottontails include weasels (Mustela), domestic cats (Felis catus), true foxes (Vulpes), birds of prey (Falconiformes), coyotes (Canis latrans), and bobcats (Lynx rufus). Past predators may have included gray wolves (Canis lupus), eastern cougars (Puma concolor), wolverines (Gulo gulo), and Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis). To avoid predators, the New England cottontails run for cover; "freeze" and rely on their cryptic coloration; or, when running, follow a zig- zag pattern to confuse the predator. Because New England cottontail habitat is small and has less vegetative cover, they must forage more often in the open, leaving them vulnerable.
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Chapman, Joseph A.; Feldhamer, George A., eds. 1982. Wild mammals of North America. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press The gestation period of pygmy rabbits is unknown. It is between 27 and 30 days in various species of cottontails (Sylvilagus spp.).
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The surrounding grasslands and pothole ponds are a fine place to view blacktail deer, California quail, cottontails and jackrabbits. Some areas are open for hunting in season. Trails make access to the wildlife area easy for hikers and add considerably to the natural experience.
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Though originally assigned to the genus Lepus, the European rabbit was consigned to its own genus in 1874, on account of its altricial young, burrowing habits, and numerous skeletal characters. The European rabbit is superficially similar to the North American cottontails, as both Oryctolagus and Sylvilagus are born blind and naked, have white flesh, and little sexual dimorphism. However, the two differ in skull characteristics, and cottontails do not habitually construct their own burrows as the European rabbit does. Molecular studies confirm that the resemblance between the two is due to convergent evolution, and that the European rabbit's closest relatives are the hispid hare, the riverine rabbit and the Amami rabbit.
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Male desert cottontail at 8 weeks, and the same specimen at 16 months of age Submissive posture anticipating food The lifespan of a cottontail that reaches adulthood averages less than two years, depending on the location. Unfortunately for the cottontail, almost every local carnivore larger or faster than the lagomorph is its predator. Some predators, like snakes for example, are familiar with the area inhabited by the cottontails, and can catch and eat the young at will; the mother is unable to defend the litter. Although cottontails are highly active sexually, and mated pairs have multiple litters throughout the year, few young survive to adulthood.
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Masters in Science thesis. University of Idaho, Moscow. More locally other jackrabbits and cottontails may be taken in smaller numbers. The snowshoe hare (Lepus americanus) is thought to be the dominant prey species in the boreal forests of Canada but there have been no dietary studies conducted there.
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Mouse remains occurred in 26% of scats. Mouse remains could not be identified to species; however, deer mice, northern grasshopper mice, and house mice were captured in snap-trap surveys. Potential prey items included thirteen-lined ground squirrels, plains pocket gophers, mountain cottontails, upland sandpipers, horned larks, and western meadowlarks.Hillman, Conrad N. 1968.
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Another curious feature observed in specimens from southern Florida is melanism. These individuals exhibit completely black phenotypic coloration that does not change seasonally. Marsh rabbits have a number of features that distinguish them from cottontails and swamp rabbits. The short ears and legs are much smaller than that of a swamp rabbit.
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They are not usually active in the middle of the day, but can be observed foraging in the early morning, and early evening. Cottontails are rarely found out of their burrows looking for food on windy days, because the wind interferes with their ability to hear approaching predators, their primary defense mechanism.
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Gravel trails and boardwalks run through over a mile of baldcypress-tupelo swamp, beech-magnolia and hardwood forests. Birds, squirrels, turtles, snakes, insects, and spiders are regularly seen inhabitants along with other common urban wildlife such as raccoons, armadillos, opossums, and swamp cottontails. Also known to visit the site are foxes, coyotes, deer, and otters.
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Appalachian cottontails are found in mountainous areas, typically from of elevation. The Appalachian Mountains provide for S. obscurus a habitat with cover and vegetation such as blackberry, greenbriar, and mountain laurel.Moseley, Kurtis, W. Mark Ford, John Edwards, and Michael Strager. "USDA." A Multi-Criteria Decisionmaking Approach for Management Indicator Species Selection on the Monongahela National Forest, West Virginia.
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The colour is some shade of brown, buff or grey and there is one black species and two striped ones. Domesticated rabbits come in a wider variety of colours. Newborn rabbits are less developed than hares and require parental care. Although most species live and breed in burrows, the cottontails and hispid hares have forms (nests).
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Life history and ecology of the black-footed ferret in the wild. Brookings, SD: South Dakota State University. Thesis Based on 86 black- footed ferret scats found near Meeteetse, Wyoming, 87% of their diet was composed of white-tailed prairie dogs. Other food items included deer mice, sagebrush voles, meadow voles, mountain cottontails, and white-tailed jackrabbits.
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In addition to ubiquitous pigeons and crows, animal species that are common on site include eastern cottontails, white-tailed deer, red-tailed hawks, groundhogs or woodchucks, eastern gray squirrels, and ruby-throated hummingbirds. Red-tailed hawks and red fox keep populations in control and a nearby colony of turkey vultures keep the grounds free of carrion.
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The refuge also provides important breeding habitat for Swainson's hawks, tricolored blackbirds, marsh wrens, mallards, gadwalls, cinnamon teal, and burrowing owls. Tricolored blackbirds, a colonial-nesting songbird, breed in colonies of over 25,000 pairs. Coyotes, ground squirrels, desert cottontails, beavers, and long-tailed weasels can also be seen year-round. Vernal pools are another type of wetland found on the Merced NWR.
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Photos reveal the range of the Guadalupe Mountains east, and the local area has occasional deer and tumbleweeds. The mountain area is also noted for elk, coyotes, jack rabbits, desert cottontails, ring-tailed ground squirrels, and gray foxes. Another mountain range looms just west. The site is located within Texas's 23rd Congressional district and is represented by Republican Will Hurd.
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A variety of wildlife can be found in the Galiuro Wilderness, including large mammals such as desert mule deer, pronghorn, desert bighorn sheep, Coues’ white-tailed deer, collared peccary, Mearns coyote, New Mexico black bear, and North American cougar. Smaller mammals include desert cottontails, ground squirrels, raccoon, white-nosed coati, foxes, skunks, and bobcat. Birds include quail, doves, and the band-tailed pigeon.
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The New England cottontail also typically has black hair between and on the anterior surface of the ear, which the Eastern cottontails lacks. The New England cottontail weighs between 995 and 1347 g and is between 398 and 439 mm long, with dark brown coats with a "penciled effect" and tails with white undersides. They are sexually dimorphic, with females larger than males.
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Local animals of use to prehistoric human populations, when the site was occupied, including: jackrabbits, cottontails, rats, mice, roadrunners, doves, hawks, and various reptiles. The animals found in the higher elevations included: bear, elk, black bear, grizzly bear, wolf, rattlesnake, golden eagle.Shafer, p. 4. They also gathered or cultivated maize, common bean, squash, goosefeet, pigweed, sunflower, walnut, and pinon nuts.
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An extremely wet winter season means increased plant life in the spring, and thus increases in cottontail populations. However, if the wet winter is followed by a particularly dry summer, the plant life dries up quickly due to the extreme desert summer temperatures, and can have the opposite effect, and can lead to hunger for the now over-populated cottontails.
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"Wildlife list for Cline Falls watershed in the Upper Deschutes Subbasin", Oregon Wildlife Explorer, National Resources Digital Library, Oregon State University Libraries, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon, accessed 18 November 2017. Larger mammals found in the area around Cline Falls include mule deer and coyotes. Smaller mammals include striped skunks, white-tailed jackrabbits, mountain cottontails, Belding's ground squirrels, golden-mantled ground squirrels, and least chipmunks.
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Surveys of the S. f. hitchensi population on Smith and Fisherman Islands were done in 1987 and around 1991, and no evidence of the subspecies was found.Virginia Fish and Wildlife Information Service: BOVA Booklet – Status (Accessed 3 September 2012) This indicates that the Smith's Island cottontail is likely extinct. Recent reported sightings of cottontails may be other exotic subspecies that were introduced to the islands.
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Mountain cottontail diet is made up in large part of grasses such as wheatgrasses, needle-and-thread, Indian ricegrass, cheatgrass brome, bluegrasses, and bottlebrush squirreltail.Johnson, Mark K., Richard M. Hansen, Feb 1979, Foods of Cottontails and Woodrats in South-Central Idaho, Journal of Mammalogy, Vol. 60, No. 1, pp. 213-215 Dependent on the area the diet may include quantities of shrubs such as Big sagebrush, rabbitbrush, and saltbushes.
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There are several threats that have endangered the survival of S. obscurus. These threats involve the destruction and maturation of habitat, as well as habitat fragmentation which is due to urban development. Once fragmentation has occurred the lack of cover exposes the cottontail to predators, increasing the strain on the species. Hunting is a common reason for deaths of many Appalachian cottontails but is mostly due to lack of knowledge by the hunter.
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The gardens are home to 195 bird species, ranging from kites, mallards, falcons and kestrels to quail, plovers, swallows, starlings and woodpeckers. Mammalian residents include California ground squirrels, Audubon cottontails, kangaroo rats, gophers, coyotes, gray foxes, opossums, pack rats, skunks and bobcats. Reptiles, including turtles, lizards of many kinds, and snakes, ranging from gopher snakes to the venomous rattlers, also populate the gardens. Amphibian residents include bullfrogs, western toads, salamanders and Pacific Tree Frog.
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Visitors may see footprints along the dunes as evidence of the nightly hunting and foraging excursions of nocturnal animals. Carnivorans include coyotes, bobcats, badgers, and kit foxes. Rabbits include desert cottontails and black- tailed jackrabbits, with the jackrabbit capable of speeds as high as . Rodents include porcupines, pocket gophers, Apache pocket mice, and Merriam's kangaroo rats, the latter of which can jump up to high when frightened despite having only a body and an tail.
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The WMA contains mixed prairie grass and sagebrush is found on the upland sites interspersed with sand plum thickets. of river bottom contains cottonwood, American elm, hackberry and eastern red cedar interspersed with sand plum thickets, salt cedar and mixed grassland. Wildlife includes pheasant, quail dove, duck, geese, deer, turkey, rabbits (cottontails and jackrabbits), coyote, bobcat and raccoons. Bald Eagles winter on Fort Supply WMA and have been seen on Cooper WMA.
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In mainland Europe, water voles make up a large portion of the stoat's diet. Hares are sometimes taken, but are usually young specimens. In North America, where the ecological niche for rat and rabbit sized prey is taken by the larger long-tailed weasel, the stoat preys on mice, voles, shrews, and young cottontails. In New Zealand, the stoat feeds principally on birds, including the rare kiwi, kaka, mohua, yellow-crowned parakeet, and New Zealand dotterel.
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The lifespan of a cottontail averages about two years, depending on the location. Almost every living carnivorous creature comparable to or larger in size than these lagomorphs is a potential predator, including such diverse creatures as domestic dogs, cats, humans, snakes, coyotes, mountain lions, foxes, and if the cottontail is showing signs of illness, even squirrels. The cottontail's most frequent predators are various birds of prey. Cottontails can also be parasitized by botfly species including Cuterebra fontinella.
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In the early morning and evening, black-tailed deer can be seen in the park as well. California ground squirrels, western gray squirrels, pygmy rabbits, mountain cottontails, black-tailed jackrabbits, striped skunks, porcupines, raccoons, and American badgers live in the area around the park. Coyotes and bobcats are also found in the area around the park."Tumalo Creek (1707030105)", Oregon Wildlife Explorer, National Resources Digital Library, Oregon State University Libraries, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon, 24 September 2014.
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They were known as "The Cottontails" because the vertical stabilizers of the bombers were painted white. The unit received two Distinguished Unit Citations in support of the invasion of Southern France, the advance of Russian troops in the Balkans, and the Allied effort in Italy. It was inactivated in October 1945. The group was reactivated as a fighter unit briefly in the 1950s under Tactical Air Command (TAC) at Foster AFB, Texas, where it replaced a flying training unit.
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The New England cottontail is a habitat specialist. It thrives in early successional forests--young forests (usually less than twenty-five years old) with a dense understory of thick, tangled vegetation (scrubland/brushland), preferably of blueberry or mountain laurel (Kalmia latifolia). Studies indicate that these forests matured into closed-canopy stands and the shrub layer began to thin in the 1960s, the New England cottontail habit declined. New England cottontails prefer woodlands with higher elevation or northern latitudes.
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The twigs are browsed on by whitetail deer, moose and cottontails Deer eat many saplings and may limit regeneration of the species if the deer population is too great. Ruffed grouse and various songbirds feed on the seeds and buds. Due to the thin bark of the tree yellow bellied sapsuckers feed on this tree by drilling holes in the tree and collecting the sap. Broad-winged hawks show a preference for nesting in yellow birch in New York.
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Seasonally, Louisiana pine snakes were most active March–May and fall (especially November) and least active during hibernation in December–February, and in summer (especially August). Their below-ground refuges were almost exclusively Baird's pocket gopher (Geomys breviceps) burrow systems. Pocket gophers also appear to be their primary food source, but other reported food items include other rodents, cottontails, amphibians, and ground-nesting birds and eggs. Their annual home range varied from (juveniles) to in size, and averaged .
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A North American cottontail, Waterloo, Ontario Cottontail rabbits are among the 20 lagomorph species in the genus Sylvilagus, found in the Americas. Most Sylvilagus species have stub tails with white undersides that show when they retreat, giving them their characteristic name. However, this feature is not present in all cottontails nor is it unique to the genus. The genus is widely distributed across North America, Central America and northern and central South America, though most species are confined to particular regions.
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Sixty-one species of mammals, 18 species of reptiles, 238 species of birds, two species of amphibians, and eight species of fish are in Great Basin National Park and the neighboring valleys. ;Mammals Townsend's big-eared bat An abundance of wildlife has taken advantage of the habitat zones in Great Basin National Park. Jackrabbits, pygmy rabbits, mountain cottontails, ground squirrels, chipmunks, and various mice live in the low-elevation sagebrush desert. Pronghorns, coyotes, kit foxes, and badgers are less common inhabitants.
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As the juveniles are capable of swallowing adult mice, they do not often resort to eating slimmer prey, such as lizards. In fact, eastern cottontails and marsh rabbits (Sylvilagus) form the bulk of the diet in most parts of Florida. Squirrels, rats, and mice are also eaten, along with birds such as towhees and bobwhite quail. Other prey that have been reported include a king rail, a young wild turkey, and a mother woodpecker along with four of her eggs.
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When Richard E. Shope began his research on SPV, little was known about the natural transmission of the virus vectors and interactions of the virus on its hosts. In the lab setting, Shope worked with the virus’ natural host, the cottontail rabbit. Particularly, he worked with the cottontails of Iowa and other western states of the United States. He worked with these species because it was discovered that SPV had a restricted geographic range and was confined to the high plains of the western United States.
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Habitat destruction and fragmentation is a threat to this plant and other Florida scrub natives; much of the Florida scrub has been destroyed to make room for residential development and agricultural operations such as orange groves. Another threat is predation. The plant is apparently very attractive to white-tailed deer and eastern cottontails, which consume the herbage, and it plays host to many butterfly species, including long-tailed skipper (Urbanus proteus) and southern cloudywing (Thorybes bathyllus). The seeds appear to be consumed quite often, possibly by beetles.
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A bird checklist, available at the visitor center, listed of over 100 species that can be found in the area. These include notable species such as hawks, golden eagles, killdeer, Gambel's quail, great blue herons, and red-shafted flickers. Many mammals can also be seen in the park, such as gray foxes, bobcats, badgers, prairie dogs, desert cottontails, jackrabbits, and porcupines. Reptiles found in the area include the Hopi rattlesnake, western king rattlesnake, horned lizards, common collared lizards, bull snakes, and desert spiny lizards.
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The New England cottontail is a medium-sized rabbit almost identical to the eastern cottontail. The two species look nearly identical, and can only be reliably distinguished by genetic testing of tissue, through fecal samples (i.e., of rabbit pellets), or by an examination of the rabbits' skulls, which shows a key morphological distinction: the frontonasal skull sutures of eastern cottontail are smooth lines, while the New England cottontails' are jagged or interdigitated.Mark Elbroch, Animal Skulls: A Guide to North American Species, Stackpole Books (2006), p. 247.
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To aid in swimming, the hind legs have less fur and longer nails than typical cottontails. When not concealed in dense thickets, the rabbits will stay submerged in muddy water with only their eyes and noses exposed and ears laid back flat. When they have been spotted, they will readily take to water and swim quickly to a new hiding spot or floating vegetation. Because marsh rabbits possess very short hind legs, they typically rely on doubling and turning when running to evade predators.
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The desert cottontail (Sylvilagus audubonii), also known as Audubon's cottontail, is a New World cottontail rabbit, and a member of the family Leporidae. Unlike the European rabbit, they do not form social burrow systems, but compared with some other leporids, they are extremely tolerant of other individuals in their vicinity. Cottontails give birth to their kits in burrows vacated by other mammals. They sometimes cool off, or take refuge in scratched out shallow created depressions of their own making, using their front paws like a back hoe.
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California High Desert cottontail on alert for predators Many desert animals prey on cottontails, including birds of prey, mustelids, the coyote, the bobcat, wolves, mountain lions, snakes, weasels, humans, and even squirrels, should a cottontail be injured or docile from illness. Alien species, such as cats and dogs, are also known predators, and also pose a threat. Southwestern Native Americans hunted them for meat but also used their fur and hides. It is also considered a game species, due to which it is hunted for sport.
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Mammals are rarely consumed by North American river otters, and are not a major dietary component. Mammals preyed upon by North American river otters are characteristically small or are a type species found in riparian zones. The few occurrences of mammals found in the North American river otter's diet include: muskrats (Ondatra zibethicus); meadow voles (Microtus pennsylvanicus); eastern cottontails (Sylvilagus floridanus); and snowshoe hares (Lepus americanus). Records of North American otters preying upon North American beavers (Castor canadensis) vary; it has been reported in the southern boreal forest of Manitoba.
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Many of these habitats are characterized by saline or alkaline conditions which are accentuated by the low rainfall and arid conditions that characterize the San Joaquin Valley. These habitats support a rich botanical community of native bunchgrasses, native and exotic annual grasses, forbs, and native shrubs. Trees, such as the valley oak, cottonwood, and willow are found along riparian corridors. In these areas, visitors might encounter coyotes, desert cottontails, ground squirrels, western meadowlarks, yellow-billed magpies, loggerhead shrikes, as well as northern harriers and white-tailed kites coursing over the vegetation and other raptors.
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The black portions of the upper parts often change to a dull grayish buff in spring and summer months, returning to a reddish or ochre color in fall, followed by darker black in the winter. Rabbits of peninsular Florida typically display darker and redder colors with a cinnamon-rufous nape, feet, and legs. Juveniles display much darker and duller colors than adults. One feature that distinguishes marsh rabbits from swamp rabbits and cottontails is that the underside of the tail is almost never white but more brownish gray.
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The watershed is a haven for wildlife. Common animals in the game lands include painted and common snapping turtles, muskrats, frogs, eastern cottontails, red foxes, and white-tailed deer, while birds include golden- winged, hooded, and blue-winged warblers, red-shouldered hawks, wood ducks, tundra swans, pied-billed grebes, American bitterns, herons, and belted kingfishers. Note: This guide is available both as a book (page numbers given) and website (URL given). The first barn owls to be banded in Lycoming County were in a barn near Elimsport in 2006.
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The birds in the Arcade creek area include mallards, wood ducks, red-shouldered hawks, Cooper's hawks, great egrets, belted kingfishers, California quail and acorn woodpeckers. The native animals include California ground squirrels, western grey squirrels, botta's pocket gophers, beaver, North American river otters, raccoons and striped skunks. Some nonnative species include fox squirrels, black rats, Norway rats, house mice, Virginia Opossums, alligator lizards, sharp-tailed snakes, gopher snakes, pond turtles, western toads, bullfrogs and domestic cats and dogs. Some species that once inhabited the Arcade Creek area include grizzly bears, Tule elk, black-tailed deer, pronghorn antelope, coyotes, ringtails, cottontails and badgers.
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Pronghorns are colloquially referred to as antelope due to their resemblance, but are not closely related to Old World antelopes Mammals that roam this park include black bears, coyotes, skunks, bats, elk, foxes, bobcats, badgers, ring-tailed cats, pronghorns, and cougars. Desert cottontails, kangaroo rats and mule deer are commonly seen by visitors. At least 273 species of birds inhabit the park. A variety of hawks and eagles are found, including the Cooper's hawk, the northern goshawk, the sharp-shinned hawk, the red-tailed hawk, the golden and bald eagles, the rough-legged hawk, the Swainson's hawk, and the northern harrier.
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In the northern Rocky Mountains and Northern Plains areas, the main prey species are the white-tailed jackrabbit (Lepus townsendii) and the mountain cottontail (Sylvilagus nuttallii). In the Southwest, the Great Basin, and most of California, the main prey species are the black-tailed jackrabbit (Lepus californicus) and the desert cottontail (Sylvilagus audubonii), the former being especially important, comprising about a quarter of North America prey items in a 1976 study. In two studies in southern Idaho, the black-tailed jackrabbit and the two cottontails dominated the diet, comprising over 70% of nest remains.Collopy, M.W. 1983.
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Washington, D.C. Undoubtedly because it pursues large prey often, this hawk has larger and stronger feet, with long talons, and a larger, more prominent hooked beak than most other raptors around its size. Locally, other buteonine hawks, including the ferruginous hawk, the red-tailed hawk and the white-tailed hawk also hunt primarily cottontails and jackrabbits, but each are bigger, weighing about , and , respectively, more on average than a Harris's hawk.Smith, D. G. and J. R. Murphy. (1978). Biology of the Ferruginous Hawk in central Utah. Sociobiology 3:79–98.Thurow, T. L., C. M. White, R. P. Howard, and J. F. Sullivan. (1980).
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Unlike the riparian areas found in the other units of Bitter Lake NWR, which draw thousands of migratory waterfowl annually, the Salt Creek area sees few migratory birds, since the area has no wetlands. The Area was originally proposed as a Wilderness area to protect the red rock bluffs at the north end of the unit, home to populations of native species such as roadrunners, quail, and ring-necked pheasant, as well as cottontails, black-tailed jackrabbits, deer, coyotes, and bobcats. The unit includes a section of the Pecos River, as well as a number of sinkhole lakes, many of which are habitat for the Pecos pupfish.
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Breeding responses of raptors to jackrabbit density in the eastern Great Basin Desert of Utah. Raptor Research, 13:1-14. In the short-grass prairie of Colorado, mountain cottontail (Sylvilagus nuttallii) and black-tailed jackrabbits predominated in October to December, making up 42.9% by number (and nearly all the biomass), thence dropping to 9.3% by number in April, while voles rose to 32.2% peak in May, down to a minimum of 10.2% by number in June. Further north in Colorado, in the absence of jackrabbits, the mountain cottontails falls to third place by number (12.9%) behind the northern pocket gopher (36.5%) and prairie vole (24.7%) but still dominates the biomass, making up about half.Marti, C. D. (1969).
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The Broken Path is the fourth book in the series and was released on 11 February 2014. It begins with a flashback to Lucky's pup days, where he befriended a female toddler longpaw and alerted her family to any danger she may have gotten herself into (like playing with matches) - his own mother congratulating him for that as well. In the present, Lucky remembers back to this moment when he heard those kind longpaws use the term "lucky", and basically understands that has pretty much become his Adult Name now. While he ponders this, he and Fiery teach Lick how to hunt brush rabbits and mountain cottontails in their Wild Pack's new territory on a Red Leaf day.
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Most captive specimens, once mature, seem to resent attempts at contact and are often given to attacking their keepers. They will only follow cues when conditioned from an early age but rarely with the same level of success seen in some diurnal birds of prey trained for falconry or entertainment, although this does not necessarily correlate with intelligence as posited by Errington. Carl D. Marti also disagrees with Errington's assessments, noting that their prey selection is not as "completely random as Errington suggested"; while "Great Horned Owls appeared to select their mammalian prey in general relation to the prey populations...Cottontails, appeared to be selected as prey out of relation to their population status." Like most owls, the great horned owl makes great use of secrecy and stealth.
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Most widely reported are the cottontails, which the three most common North America varieties softly grading into mostly allopatric ranges, being largely segregated by habitat preferences where they overlap in distribution. Namely, in descending order of reportage were: the eastern cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus), the second most widely reported prey species overall in North America and with maximum percentage known in a given study was 26.4% in Oklahoma (out of 958 prey items), the mountain cottontail (Sylvilagus nuttallii), maximum representation being 17.6% out of a sample of 478 in Kaibab Plateau, Arizona and the desert cottontail (Sylvilagus audubonii), maximum representation being 22.4% out of a sample of 326 in west- central Arizona.Millsap, B. A. (1981). Distributional status of falconiformes in westcentral Arizona: with notes on ecology, reproductive success and management.
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In the Great Basin, the owls share black-tailed jackrabbit and desert cottontail as the primary prey with golden eagles, red-tailed hawks and ferruginous hawks (Buteo regalis); all four species had diets with more than 90% of the biomass is made up of those lagomorphs. Of these, the great horned owl and golden eagle were able to nest most closely to one another because they had the most strongly dissimilar periods of activity. In California, when compared to the local red-tailed hawks and western diamondback rattlesnakes (Crotalus atrox), the diets were most similar in that by number about 15-20% of all three species' diets depended on cottontails, but the largest portion was made up of ground squirrels in the hawk and the rattlesnake and desert woodrats and other assorted rodents in the great horned owl. In the boreal forests, the great horned owl's prolificacy as a snowshoe hare hunter places it second only to the Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis) among all predators.
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