Coastal tapeti

The coastal tapeti, Sylvilagus tapetillus, also known as the Rio de Janeiro dwarf cottontail or dwarf tapeti, is a cottontail rabbit native to Brazil. It is known only from three specimens captured in the late nineteenth century in the Paraiba Valley, and for a long time it was considered a smaller subspecies of the common tapeti. Oldfield Thomas first described it in 1913, calling the type specimen extremely small, and a 2017 analysis confirmed that it is sufficiently distinct in appearance and genetics to be a species in its own right. It is similar to the common tapeti but slightly smaller. Because of urban expansion near its habitat in the densely populated Paraiba Valley of Rio de Janeiro state, it is unclear whether the species still survives today.